35% of Marvel’s Wolverine Launch Sales Were the Disc Version

LAS VEGAS

Every few months the games industry holds the same funeral, and every few months the corpse sits up and orders a pizza. This time the corpse is the humble plastic disc. Fresh sales data says more than a third of everyone who bought Marvel’s Wolverine at launch wanted the physical version — and in Europe, it was the majority of buyers. This, in the same year Sony announced it plans to stop making PS5 game discs altogether. You can feel the tension in those two sentences rubbing against each other.

The numbers come from Ampere Analysis, published by The Game Business and reported by VGC. Globally, 35% of Wolverine’s launch sales were the disc version. The European breakdown, from GSD data, is where it gets really interesting: 51% of European sales were physical — and it splits hard by country. In France, more than two-thirds of Wolverine’s sales were physical. In the UK, two-thirds were digital. Same game, same continent, opposite buying cultures. The French will be burying the disc era in a casket they bought in person, apparently.

The game sold anyway — enormously

None of this is a story about a game that needed the disc to survive. Ampere says Wolverine sold around 2.16 million units in September, making it the second-best-selling PS5 title of the month behind EA Sports FC 27. Insomniac’s claw-first action game was a hit by every measure — digital included. The physical number is not a crutch; it is a preference. Over 750,000 people looked at a download button, looked at a box, and picked the box.

And it was not just Wolverine. The same dataset shows September was a physical-friendly month across the board: Silent Hill: Townfall did over 45% of its sales in the boxed version, The Blood of Dawnwalker hit 36% on PS5, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword came in at 30%. These are not anomalies; they are a pattern. When the games people care about show up, a huge chunk of the audience still wants something to hold. Publishers clearly know it — physical editions keep getting announced because they keep selling out.

The January 2028 deadline

Which brings us to the elephant. Sony announced this summer that it will end PS5 game disc production for games launching after January 2028. The reaction, per VGC, was significant criticism from fans of physical games — and honestly, can you blame them? This is not a format fading out because nobody buys it. This is a format being retired while it still moves a third of the biggest launches of the year.

Sony has said it will “cautiously move forward” with the plan, which is the kind of phrase companies use when they know the room is against them. And the analysts are not buying the industry’s hurry either. Joost van Dreunen told The Game Business that the data shows consumers are still attached to physical versions: “People have a need to collect. That’s where physical sales are still incredibly relevant for the consumer market. The industry is ready to move on, but not so fast.”

The sharpest line on the subject belongs to former PlayStation US boss Shawn Layden, who recently argued against axing physical discs entirely. Yes, he said, maybe 80% of players download — but the 20% who do not are, in his words, “largely the most faithful of the faithful,” the people who buy two copies of every game: one that never leaves the shrink wrap and one they actually play. “If you can’t sell a thing, it means you don’t own a thing.” That line has been rattling around my head all week, because it is the whole argument in eleven words. A license is a permission slip. A disc is yours.

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