Overview
- Square Enix disclosed Monday that its April–June quarter showed about 90.1% of units were downloads, reporting 6.65 million downloaded copies and 730,000 packaged copies.
- The publisher said it will still offer some physical editions in the near term and published a release slate that includes Final Fantasy VII Revelation, Dragon Quest XI S for Switch 2, and several catalog collections.
- Industry peers and platform moves already point the same way, with other major publishers reporting similarly high digital shares and Sony planning to stop producing PlayStation discs for new releases in January 2028.
- Analysts warn the headline digital share mixes full-game downloads with DLC, microtransactions and subscriptions and that large MMO sales such as Final Fantasy XIV can skew unit totals versus pure boxed-game sales.
- The shift is producing concrete effects on the ground: disc plants and retailers are retooling or offering boxed download codes, consumer petitions have grown and legal challenges over resale and market power are being prepared in multiple countries.