Take-Two Interactive chief Strauss Zelnick has waded into the discs vs. digital debate, and given the company’s decision to release Grand Theft Auto 6 exclusively in digital format, you probably won’t be surprised to find that he thinks discs “don’t really make sense” these days.
PC gamers have lived in an almost fully digital world for years, thanks primarily to the rise of Steam, but it’s different on the console side of things, where physical game releases, and retailers like GameStop, are still a regular part of life. But two things have shaken that foundation recently: The lack of a physical edition of GTA 6—a game so big it really does have the potential for that kind of industry-wide impact—and Sony’s decision to end disc production in 2028.
That’s got some console gamers a little shook, but Zelnick doesn’t think it’s going to matter much because the digital revolution has mostly already happened anyway. “Our business is well over 90% digitally distributed as it is. It’s already a digital business,” he said in today’s earnings call. “So in certain instances, especially if it’s a big game, discs—and note I said discs—don’t really make sense for the consumer.
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“Also, most instances you have to register online to play anyhow. So if you’re already connected, who cares if you download digitally? It’s all the same and it’s much more convenient.”
Zelnick is correct, mostly, that digital distribution is more convenient, as long as you have access to the necessary online infrastructure—which is to say, internet that doesn’t suck. Certainly the world is better on that front than it was 20 years ago, but there are just as certainly still people for whom downloading tens or hundreds of gigabytes is absolutely not convenient.
Beyond that, there’s also the ineffable magic of game boxes, and the way they make games “real” in ways that downloading from Steam or GOG simply cannot duplicate. Some of us just love those big dumb game boxes that eat up so much space on shelves, and a not-insignificant sense of the excitement around gaming is lost when everything is reduced to an intangible clot of data.
All of that is without getting into the whole question of “ownership,” and I’m sorry to say it but for as mad as we all got at that guy from Ubisoft who said we need to get comfortable with the idea of not owning our games, he was right.
Anyway, none of that represents the mainstream gaming audience, and there’s no uncrossing this particular Rubicon. But Zelnick said the embrace of digital doesn’t mean Take-Two is abandoning physical releases completely: Comparing it to the persistence of vinyl in the music business, he said that Take-Two will likely put out physical editions of games “now and then.” But, he continued, “in other instances, it just won’t make sense.”
Zelnick isn’t the only one in the industry who thinks the move away from game discs on consoles won’t ultimately be a big deal. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said in July that “there are pluses and minuses, but we think it will not disturb the industry too much,” while industry analyst Daniel Ahmad more directly echoed Zelnick’s point, saying “the truth is that the console ecosystem is nearly entirely digital at this point” anyway.
Grand Theft Auto 6, for the record, remains set for release on November 19, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. A PC version still hasn’t been announced.
