Capcom’s Q1 report for the 2026 fiscal year is out, and it’s making a lot of players uneasy.
A quick look at the data shows that an overwhelming majority of Capcom’s sales for Q1 2026 were digital — a whopping 93.3% of them, in fact, including both new releases and older games. That leaves only 6.7% for physical media sales, something that players can’t help but feel antsy about, given the imminent death of physical discs for PlayStation games starting January 2028.
A closer look at these numbers shows that 60.4% of these digital sales were for PC, while just 32.9% were for consoles. This breakdown doesn’t come as a massive surprise, given that physical disc drives haven’t exactly been a thing on PCs for the last decade or so, but it’s still notable.
This news has sparked quite the debate among fans online, with some wondering whether or not the digital sales figure doesn’t include DLC content locked behind digital-only purchases, or how it’s broken down per game. We can’t know how many digital sales of older games made up this amount (the recent Resident Evil Steam sale comes to mind), for instance, or how many newer releases are responsible for it, though Capcom did say that the Resident Evil series was mostly to thank for this high.
Resident Evil is seeing a huge surge in popularity as of late, recently rising to become the third highest-selling game franchise within Japan, only behind Pokemon and Mario. There’s also been a massive shift in the most popular game in the RE series, with this same sales data showing that Resident Evil 2 has finally dethroned RE 5 as the best-selling entry, ending its 15-year-long dominant streak.
While we don’t know the exact breakdown behind Capcom’s latest sales data, it’s certainly shedding a stark light on the future of physical media, which is looking increasingly dim following Sony’s hugely unpopular decision to stop producing actual game discs. Although players have made their feelings known by flooding comment sections with protestations and even planning a total PlayStation blackout, the numbers don’t like — and it looks like most players are increasingly trending toward digital games.
Capcom, for its part, hasn’t made any plans to stop the production of physical game discs. In fact, the company stated in a shareholder Q&A report that it will continue to make physical discs, as a “significant number” of players still demand them.
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
