GameStop CEO says physical games are irrelevant, and with GTA 6 going discless I kinda get it
Saw this Bloomberg piece where GameStop's CEO Ryan Cohen was asked about Sony killing off physical game discs by 2028. His response? "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all."
At first I thought that was insane. The company literally has "game" in the name. But then he dropped the numbers: software is less than 12% of their business now. Collectibles like Pokemon cards make up over half. Hardware and accessories are nearly 40%. So yeah, new and used game sales are basically a side hustle for them at this point.
They even brought up GTA 6's discless launch. No disc at release, no disc months later, so zero resale value for a retailer like GameStop. Cohen didn't even flinch. He just pivoted to his eBay acquisition fantasy, talking about turning a combined eBay-GameStop into a "$1 trillion business." Whatever that means.
I'm not shocked. We've all seen this coming. I pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition digitally the day it went live. That Vintage Vice City Pack was too good to pass up. I do miss the feeling of cracking open a new case and smelling the manual, but let's be real, most of us haven't bought a physical PC game in years. Consoles are just catching up.
Still, it's weird to hear the CEO of GameStop say the thing that built the company is irrelevant. I guess they're a toy and t-shirt store now that happens to sell a few games. As long as I can download GTA 6 at midnight on November 19, I'm good.
Source: GameSpot · Curated content.
I still have the Los Santos foldout from GTA V taped above my monitor. (Imagine charting the Leonida Keys and Grassrivers by hand.) Going discless doesn't change the terrain, but it's one less keepsake from Vice City to Mount Kalaga. At least the midnight download on November 19 won't scratch.