Several European retailers are reportedly no longer stocking physical Xbox games

Several European retailers are reportedly no longer stocking physical Xbox games.

That’s according to GamesIndustry.biz’s Christopher Dring, who said on the Games Industry Microcast that he’d heard that sales of physical games for the console are so low that retailers have decided to stop stocking the products.

“I got told by a major publisher just before Christmas, that across Europe, several retailers have started not listing Xbox anymore,” said Dring.

“So they’ve just started not stocking Xbox games anymore, Xbox is such a digital console, the physical performance of games is really low, and ultimately when you’re selling a console that most people are just downloading games for, it doesn’t really benefit the retailer very much.

“The margin on hardware is often quite small. I wasn’t able to corroborate that, I couldn’t find which retailer these are, but it was a proper senior European publishing boss who said it to me.”

This comes after claims that Microsoft has shuttered the internal departments dedicated to bringing physical games to market. 

Legal documents leaked in September potentially laid bare key elements of Microsoft’s gaming strategy for years to come, including plans to launch an ”adorably all digital” Xbox Series X console codenamed ‘Brooklin’.

While its plans may have changed, according to the documents, the console was targeting a November 2024 launch and a $499 price point.

“There are certain AAA games with 80%+ digital shares on Xbox these days so it’s not too surprising,” Daniel Ahmad, director of research and insights at Niko Partners, said in response to Corden’s claims. “Indicative of how next gen will be for sure,” the analyst added.

While most AAA games currently receive dual physical and digital releases, some are only available to download. High-profile examples include last October’s Alan Wake 2 and Xbox’s Hellblade 2, which will be released in May.