Every stakeholder has been chiming in on PlayStation’s decision to stop making physical disc games. But we haven’t really heard from professionals about how this will affect the used games market, until now.
DATA Intelo has shared a surprisingly optimistic report about the second hand game market. Valued at $ 7.2 billion in 2025, they expect it to reach $ 13.8 billion by 2034. They project a compound annual growth rate of 7.5 % within that time.
However, it appears that this report was made after Sony‘s announcement. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said this to CNBC:
Realistically, at least 1/3 of games have been sold historically as used, and the games that were sold used also provided currency to the gamer who traded them in as cash to pay for new games. Brick and mortar game retail is doomed.
While it would be fair to question Pachter’s opinions, other analysts have similar sentiments. Morningstar’s equity research directorKazunori Ito expects the used games market to “keep shrinking and eventually disappear.”
But non-analysts clearly understand how they benefit from having physical games and used games. Physical games are definitely still vital in the bigger picture.
