Marvel’s Wolverine had a huge first month. Sony says it sold 2.16 million copies, brought in $130 million, and 35% of those sales, about 756,000 units, came from boxed copies. That’s a pretty blunt reminder that physical PlayStation 5 game sales still matter, even as Sony and the rest of the industry keep pushing harder toward digital.
That also helps explain the reaction to Sony’s earlier comments about discs. The company said PlayStation games released after January 2028 would drop them, then later walked that back after backlash, saying it would scale down manufacturing instead and allow reorders. Wolverine shows why that matters: Sony says the game sold 1.9 million copies in three days, and 35% of buyers still chose a physical copy.
The regional breakdown is telling. Sony’s numbers show Europe coming in stronger at 51% physical, with France at more than two-thirds physical and the UK going the other direction at about two-thirds digital. Other recent games point the same way, even if the split isn’t quite as sharp: Silent Hill: Townfall reached 45.4% physical, The Blood of the Dawnwalker hit 36%, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword landed between 30% and 31%.
If you care about ownership, this isn’t some side issue. Digital purchases are licenses tied to platform agreements. Sony has already removed hundreds of movies people bought through the PlayStation Store after licensing deals expired. Collectors have been saying for years that this is where things can go, and former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden has made the same point. The industry may be moving faster than some buyers want to.
Digital is ahead, and US market-tracking data shows physical spending is still below its 2008 peak. Even so, players spent $1.5 billion on physical games in 2025, and most of the reporting still focuses on North America and Europe, not Japan, South Korea, Latin America, Australia, or Africa. Marvel’s Wolverine is available now as a PlayStation 5 exclusive.
