As Sony prepares to abandon physical media for its newest releases, a striking sales figure from one of the PlayStation 5’s most recent exclusives is challenging the logic behind that decision. According to data compiled by Ampere Analysis and reported by The Game Business, Marvel’s Wolverine sold 2.16 million copies worldwide, with an unexpectedly large share coming in boxed form—roughly 35 percent, or about 756,000 units, of its total.
The numbers carry even more weight when considered against Sony’s announcement that it would stop producing physical discs for newly released games beginning in 2028. That decision sent a wave of criticism flooding the company’s social media channels, yet the September sales data suggests that disc-based purchases remain far from dead. In Europe especially, the skew toward physical was dramatic: 51 percent of Wolverine’s European sales came from boxed copies, meaning more than half of players there still chose to buy the game on a shelf rather than through a storefront.
A Broader Pattern of Physical Demand
Wolverine was not an isolated case. The data reveals that physical media continues to command substantial market share across several PlayStation titles, undermining any assumption that players have fully migrated to digital. Silent Hill: Townfall saw roughly 45.4 percent of its sales come in boxed form on PlayStation, while The Blood of the Dawnwalker and Onimusha: Way of the Sword landed at similar figures—36 percent and 31 percent physical, respectively.
This pattern complicates the narrative that digital adoption has rendered discs obsolete. While it is true that the vast majority of game purchases in America are now digital, those numbers appear noticeably less skewed toward digital on a global scale. The European results alone demonstrate that regional preferences can dramatically shift the balance, and publishers planning a fully digital future may be underestimating how much revenue remains tied to physical product.
Why Players Are Fighting Back
The anger directed at Sony runs deeper than nostalgia for a tangible format. Many players view the winding down of physical disc production as a serious threat to the very concept of game ownership. Under the current model, consumers who buy digital titles on storefronts like the PlayStation Store do not truly own those games; they hold a license to play them, which carries far fewer protections.
This distinction has real consequences. Digital storefronts have no obligation to maintain access to titles that players purchased, and recent history offers sobering examples. Just months ago, Sony removed hundreds of movies from the PlayStation Store after a contract with a rights holder expired, leaving buyers without access to content they had paid for. The company is also currently attempting in court to legally establish that players do not own their digital games—a move that has only deepened distrust among its fanbase.
The backlash to Sony’s decision has been easy to see online, with trailers, social media posts, and other official communications flooded with comments criticizing the company’s choice. With Marvel’s Wolverine, fans seem to have put their money where their mouths are.
If those figures hold up as representative, they represent a meaningful signal for an industry that has increasingly bet on digital distribution. The physical sales of Wolverine and its peers suggest that a significant portion of the gaming public still values ownership, resale potential, and the ability to preserve games across generations—benefits that license-based digital models cannot currently guarantee.
Looking Ahead
Sony’s timeline for phasing out physical discs does not begin until 2028, leaving publishers several years to navigate the transition. But data like this may complicate those plans, particularly as studios and retailers weigh how much revenue they risk ceding by abandoning boxed releases in key markets such as Europe. As the debate over game ownership continues to unfold—in boardrooms, on social media, and in court—the September sales figures for Marvel’s Wolverine stand as a reminder that the market for physical discs is far from finished.
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