2025 has been an awful year forXbox Series X|Sphysical media, and following this year’s Xbox Games Showcase, where many titles received pre-order details, the situation is looking even more worrying. Not a single first-party game will receive a proper physical release on Xbox, except for perhapsTony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4, which isreleasing on July 11. Xbox’s physical media support has been this way for years, but especially now, with every game receiving the same treatment, many people are only just realizing that it’s the end of an era.
However, Xbox is not the platform for physical media anyway. Thatbelongs to PlayStation. Over the years, Xbox has been more akin to a PC ecosystem, which isclearly the future of the platform. Xbox consumers are digital-first more than Nintendo and PlayStation, with people in the industry backing up that claim, along with Xbox’s physical sales being the worst. With PlayStation, and to a lesser degree, Nintendo still putting considerable effort into their physical releases, you shouldn’t be worried about the future of physical media.
Upcoming Xbox Physical Releases Are The Worst They’ve Ever Been
Not At The Bottom Of The Barrel. It’s Below The Barrel
Xbox games this year, likeAvowed,South of Midnight,The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, and most recently,DOOM: The Dark Ages, alllacked a proper physical releaseon Xbox. They either had a disc butneeded an internet connection to download the full game, only had a code in the box, or didn’t receive any physical release. This trend, sadly but unsurprisingly, will continue throughout the rest of 2025.
Gears of War: Reloaded, the ultimate edition of the “Ultimate Edition"of theall-time great Xbox 360 title, won’t receive a physical Xbox release, andNinja Gaiden 4andThe Outer Worlds 2will receive a code in a box. Xbox doesn’t care about physical media anymore, and to be fair,there are sources to back up the reason behind this.
Limited Run Games, a company known for physical releases,sometimes won’t put out a title on Xbox. With Konami-published titles, Limited Run Games don’t receive a stake in digital sales, only physical, and Limited Run CEOJosh Fairhurstexplained the difficulty of making Xbox copies viable on X.
Xbox physical sales are the weakest among the big three console platforms, and I must admit that I’m a digital-first consumer on Xbox. Most of my physical Xbox games are on Xbox 360, likeCall of Duty,Nier, andGTA 4. When you can swap seamlessly between games digitally, along with Quick Resume, I quickly ditched physical media. That said, I’m really into physical media for PlayStation, and it shouldn’t be a surprise thatmany Xbox games are getting superior releases over on the blue brand.
Some Games Are Receiving Better Physical Releases For PS5
Playing On Disc Has No Limits
While Xbox’s upcoming first-party games have terrible physical releases on its own platform, they’re much better on PlayStation 5.The Outer Worlds 2will still require a download, butGears of War: ReloadedandNinja Gaiden 4appear to have the full game on the PS5 disc, with no “Internet Required” label on the box. Speaking ofNinja Gaiden,Ninja Gaiden 2 Black(currently available on Xbox Game Pass) only has a physical release on PS5, as well.
Ninja Gaiden 2 Blackonly received a physical PS5 release in Asian territories.
More people buy games physically on PS5, but there are a few additional reasons for this phenomenon. The biggest reason that many aren’t even aware of is thatphysical PS5 games use Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. I didn’t even know this until I bought a PS5 for myself, but this is incredibly important, as Ultra HD Blu-ray discs can carry up to 100 GB of data.
Xbox Series X|S games still use standard Blu-rays, which can only hold up to 50 GB if it’s a dual-layered disc. Most companies will not bother spending the extra cost to make a second disc for the Xbox version, whereas a ton of games can fit into a single 100 GB PS5 disc. Capacity size matters, but another core reason is that PlayStation simply offers a far better physical media experience.
On Xbox Series X|S, you cannot install an Xbox One game offline through the disc, but that isn’t the case with the PlayStation 5. I was blown away by this feature when trying out the console for the first time, and it was so refreshing to install a PS4 game likeThe Pinball Arcadethrough the disc without needing an internet connectionat all. It encouraged me to start up a PS4/5 physical collection, as I viewed Xbox One physical games as a wasted purchase in comparison.
This Is Not The Beginning Of The End
Xbox physical games are likely coming to an end in the very near future, no doubt about it, but to take this as a sign that gaming physical media as a whole is deadcouldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve been through this before. When Target and Best Buy announced that they would stop carrying DVD and Blu-ray movies, people took that as a sign that physical media was dead.
However, film physical media is doing just fine within its niche. This year’s 4K Blu-ray of the Val Kilmer classicTombstonesold out extremely quickly, for example, and I ended up having to buy a scalped copy. Gaming physical mediawill be the same. Companies like Limited Run Games do a great job at handling physical releases of titles that would otherwise be digital-only, and PlayStation and Nintendo still support physical games a lot. Nintendo, to a lesser degree,due to the Switch 2 game-key cards, butPlayStation has always done a phenomenal job with physical mediaimplementation.
Collector’s Editions for high-profile games can still sell out quickly. Konami released an unboxing video for the Collector’s Edition ofMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eateron YouTube. As soon as it was posted, I went to order one, but it was sold out.The Last of Us Complete: Collector’s Edition on PS5 also sold out in about five days despite the backlash.Xboxhas the lowest consumer base for physical media, with most Xbox users being digital-first, and as long as PlayStation and Nintendo still support physical games, there’s no need to worry.
