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Well, this makes for grim reading! Mat Piscatella of the analysis group Circana has shared some new details today about the gaming industry's performance in both July and the year as a whole, including about physical sales in 2026.
As reported by Kotaku, Circana noted that 63% of all physical gaming sales in the US this year have been for Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, 32% have been for PlayStation, a few special editions have been for PC, and the rest have been for Xbox Series X and Xbox One - said to be "just over 4%".
Kotaku sums this up in their headline as "nobody" buying physical Xbox games in the United States.
"According to Circana’s monthly report, 63 percent of new physical games sold this year have been for Nintendo platforms, while 32 percent were for PlayStation. When I asked analyst Mat Piscatella to confirm the remaining percentage for Xbox, he pointed out that PC also had some physical editions this year, such as collector’s editions of 007 First Light and Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. That leaves Xbox with just over 4 percent."
We've seen a lot of interest from gamers recently in Xbox committing to a physical future and "getting one over" on PlayStation in the process (due to Sony announcing that they'll stop producing new discs in 2028), but there have also been industry figures warning that it's unlikely to happen due to the low physical sales for Xbox consoles.
And yeah - this doesn't exactly help the cause. If PlayStation can still sell 32% worth of physical copies and still not deem that to be good enough, it's hard to see how Microsoft is going to feel any differently.
Again though, there is the argument that even if the sales aren't great, Xbox will be able to win over consumers by still offering physical discs in 2028 and beyond, and perhaps claw back a significant portion of the physical market in the process. We're sure the idea has at least been discussed at Xbox HQ, but we reckon it's still an unlikely prospect.