"GTA 6" and many other high-profile games may say goodbye to physical discs completely, but U.S. physical game sales achieved slight growth for the first time in 17 years. Rockstar recently announced that the physical version of "GTA 6" will not come with a disc when it is released, but will only include an activation code for players to download the digital version. This news caused an uproar on the Internet.
Due to this "activation code in a box" scheme, many retailers began to remove this annual blockbuster product from their shelves. However, Circana senior director and well-known analyst Matt Piscatella predicted that this change will not actually have an impact on sales.
But what’s interesting is that Piscatella also revealed that the U.S. physical game market is showing rare signs of recovery. Since the sales peak in 2009, physical game consumption has increased year-on-year for the first time, with an increase of 3%.
Piscatella said that physical game sales have continued to decline sharply since hitting a record of $11.5 billion in 2009, but "in the past 12 months ending in May 2026, spending increased by 3% year-on-year." Collection enthusiasts should not rush to celebrate. He said that this small increase does not represent future development trends.
"The vast majority of game sales today come from digital channels," Piscatella wrote on social media. "The second-hand market...has become insignificant. More than half of the Xbox Series consoles in the United States do not have optical drives, and more than a quarter of PS5s have optical drive-less versions. The lifespan of physical game software may be less than ten years." These words are not optimistic.
"GTA 6" giving up a real physical version is also worrying. As Rockstar's blockbuster masterpiece, this game is bound to drive console sales, especially since it will not be launched on the PC platform simultaneously; however, since this game adopts a purely digital distribution model, many players who plan to buy a console may choose the version without a disc drive. Conceivably, this will further hasten the demise of boxed games, preventing us from sharing physical games with those around us and conducive to the preservation of game art, not to mention the ownership we have of the products we paid for.