Physical still dwarfing digital sales

A new study entitled ‘The D2 Report: Discs & Digital – The Business of Home Entertainment Retailing’ from the Entertainment Merchants Association claims that traditional boxed product still accounts for the vast bulk of sales in the video games market.

It claims that combined DVD and Blu-ray sales totalled $17.9bn in the US in 2009, accounting for between 80-90 per cent of the total US video games market and dwarfing the value of the digital market by a factor of nine.

While there has been a great deal of focus recently on the slippage of revenues in the DVD market, the untold story is that consumers’ embrace of home entertainment remains very strong and packaged media is the preferred delivery instrument,” EMA president and CEO Bo Andersen stated.

Digital distribution is clearly an important segment of the home entertainment market and will continue to grow in market share in the coming year. While it is tempting for industry outsiders to say ‘disc is dead,’ as the saying goes, reports of its demise are grossly exaggerated.”

The full report can be purchased here.