Josh Fairhurst, the CEO of Limited Run Games, has heard rumors that Walmart may stop selling physical Xbox games. Read on to learn more about his suspicions and more.
Physical Game Copies are Slowly Being Phased Out for a Fully Digital Future
CEO of Limited Run Games Speculates Walmart May Discontinue Selling Physical Xbox Games
John Fairhurst, the CEO of the physical games publishing company Limited Run Games, took to X (formerly Twitter) to suggest that Walmart may be "dropping physical Xbox games soon." This was in response to the news that Best Buy was " exiting the physical media business for good in 2024." Fairhurst suspects that by next year, Xbox games may not be the only ones affected due to the big possibility of how "further cuts to physical gaming sections will be made." He recognizes the current modern trend of phasing out physical copies, due to retail "becoming more and more challenging and in-store game sales are declining."
The realization that physical sales have been greatly declining was no doubt a factor as for why Best Buy chose to exit the physical media business.
How Long Will Physical Games Last?
In response to a user on X detailing how Xbox no longer has physical releases in their country, Fairhurst agrees and guesses that "Xbox will probably be out of physical media worldwide in the next five years." Xbox steadily has been moving away from physical releases largely due to the success of the Xbox Game Pass, wherein a random catalog of games become available for subscribers for the duration of a month.
Due to the wide audience it reaches, many games have been launching on the subscription service to capitalize on its global reach. The success of the surprise game Hi-Fi Rush could be attributed due to its direct launch from the Game Pass. Even longstanding franchises of Halo Infinite and Forza Motorsport had their newest iterations be immediately available for it. Most recently, the chaotic arcade brawler Party Animals had a successful launch for the subscription service. As games become more successful without the need to produce physical copies, digital-storefronts will only continue to improve and flourish.
Playstation, on the other hand, clearly still sees a future with physical media. They have recently unveiled a new model for the Playstation 5 and will still be producing two versions of the console. One with a disk drive for physical disks, while the other has none for a purely digital experience. The release of two alternative versions imply that Playstation will continue to conduct business for both digital and physical markets. Though, only time will tell if they are able to uphold the continuous development of two versions of their mainline console against the phasing out of physical games in the upcoming years.
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John Fairhurst X -formerly Twitter- account
