Physical Disc Sales EXPLODE as PlayStation Kills Discs!

0:00This is Belie, one network, every topic, everywhere. So as the entire video game industry seems to be pivoting to a digital future, it turns out that retro media, at least in music, the sales are up. They've skyrocketed this year because people want to own their music. They want to own their movies. Yeah. And this is as Sony's turning around being like, yeah, we're getting rid of physical discs because, you know, nobody really buys them. I'm like, well, really? I mean, I think some people do. At the same time, they were also putting out the record players and being like, as music should be heard. Yeah. So let's talk about it because we're really getting mixed messages here, Sony, because actually they cite in this article, they talk specifically about Sony and Sony's doing very well with CDs and vinyl, but then they're turning around getting rid of games. Games. I just think people are buying physical media because they're concerned about the fact

1:02that there has been a push, especially the last year for everything to go digital. And they're like, no, I mean, we already see it before this, but it's even elevated, escalated more since all this has happening and people are like, no, I'm not doing it. Yeah, we're done. We're done here. And really else can take is enough people to close the wallet and be like, you know what? No. I take it. Yeah, it's got to have to be a lot of normies, but I think the fact that the sales or skyrocketing in physical media elsewhere tells me that people are starting to wake up to the fact that if you have a digital download or access to a digital file, it does not mean you own it. They can take it away anytime. They can change it anytime. Yeah. Yep. So let's talk about this before you end today for the please subscribe for more pop culture news views. Ambrance guys, who have you do? As always, go out to clownfishtv.com. That's clownfishtv.com for more clownfish TV, including videos and podcasts. You will not find anywhere else. And I just put up a video yesterday. It's out here on YouTube too, talking about the mod retro consoles and owning physical games,

2:05physical media. This is a thing that's happening. I think everybody, even at Gen Z, especially, you're like, yeah, I kind of want to own my stuff. Well, they don't play physical games. So they will play physical games. Yes. Yeah, they'll play it. They'll play it in the new games too for which is really cool. So let's talk about this first, just to kind of lead into where we're going. We've been covering PlayStation and their decision to get rid of physical media and even a former Sony boss is like it's depressing. It is. But they said the markets said they will continue to buy them, but it is depressing that Sony, which created CDs and created Blue Ray is getting rid of disc sense video game consoles. But that leads us to this, which is really interesting. And I'm going to, you know, I'm really curious to see what happens with the retro game market. People are saying in the comments on the mod retro video that the prices of skyrocketed on vintage cartridges and some game discs because people are gobbling up physical media now. I have a side note question though.

3:05So you have Hollywood having a meltdown about paramount buying WarBros Discovery and saying that, you know, all these jobs are going to be lost. Meanwhile, how about all the jobs they're going to be lost when these gaming companies were refusing to offer things on physical discs because not only are we talking people that are losing their jobs across those who manufacture discs, but also any other businesses that sell vintage games or that have some kind are are build up around having physical copies, even stores, not having the physical copies to sell is going to impact, you know, some of the other sales and some people they might hire and stuff. Why are they talking about that and putting a stop to that? If jobs matter. Good question. Yeah, because there are so many retailers that are going to be a so well. A lot of businesses, a lot of companies, I mean, there's a lot of jobs, losses, we're talking like thousands of jobs lost there and you don't hear anything about that. No. I'm sorry, just pop it to my head and we're talking about what about the job losses and all the companies that are going to go under because their companies are built on, you know, reselling games or whatever.

4:07I mean, they're going to have all the fact that there's a demand for the physical stuff from the past still, but they're not going to have the new games to sell as well. Well, as comic shops have that worked out for them because a lot of comic shops aren't selling new comic books. They're just selling vintage. The old ones. Yeah. So, but if you have a lot of the old ones, okay, you're great. But if you don't and if prices are going up and they're harder to come by, it's how long to they all, they, these other industries fold. And then my next thing is why isn't that being brought up for job losses? Well, they don't, they don't care. That's the thing. I know they don't care. That's the point. So, if you don't want to share with the retail to them, it's like, well, we have to give a percentage to one-mortar target or game stop or whoever. We don't want to do that. So this way, we're going to get full retail price for the game. It's going to be almost all profit because it's digital. Right. That's exactly what they're doing. But I'm just saying, they're not putting, they're putting the caboch on certain things that are because of job losses. The other things like this, which are not, or something that customers don't want to, they're not doing anything to stop it. Yeah.

5:07The logic is we're, and really what this, this bull's down to is not what the consumer wants so much is what the company is going to do again to maximize profit. And I get it. I mean, as, as people who have published books, dealing in physical media, there's a lot of shit that can go wrong. It is expensive. You have to deal with the logistics of all that. I get it. You're just thinking of your profit by going digital. And I get that. But I'm just saying, it was an aside. I just was thinking myself that they'll have an Hissie about that and they're doing it. They can't just stop that. But this is like, you know, a much bigger deal and they aren't doing shit to stop it. But I thought that was kind of funny. So this comes from Tom's hardware. Sales of CD and vinyl music sees strong resurgence amid physical media backlash. US sales of retro media were up 59%. 59% 18% respectively in H1, 2026. And that was before, it was that, it was up a whole bunch before in 2024 and 2025 as well. Yeah. So it's 59% in 2026. That means it's significantly increased even in the last couple of years then.

6:10This is all part of a healthy diversified marketplace, including digital reckons are IAA research VP. Well, it's making a more something because because of digital people don't want digital. Right. And that's the thing too. Like I like my CD collection. I like my record collection. And I made a mistake when, you know, we were moving. So I was trying to save space. I had hundreds and hundreds of CDs. I accumulated over the years and I converted a lot of those to MP3s and got rid of the physical discs. And I regretted it because some of those discs like aren't even available anymore. And the file is not quite the same thing as being able to, you know, pull a jewel case out and look through the booklet or, you know, get your vinyl out or something. There's something very nice about having that tactile experience and you do the feel. Well, that's what I'm about to. Yeah. And if the internet goes down, guess what? My discs still work. So it's like you. I don't know. There's not so much in video games.

7:10I'm not seeing as much video games, but definitely with the music and with like, you know, DVDs and things like that, that you're seeing a lot of the younger people wanting the actual physical media. Yeah. And gaming gas, but not as much, unless it's retro, not as much because they're used to just buying it digitally. Or a lot of us are used to buying music digitally too, but because they have Spotify and things like that, but they often have a Spotify subscription and they want to own physical copies of the media. Basically, Spotify is kind of like the radio station, right? And that's how it used to be when we were kids. It was, you know, you listened to a song on the radio, you'd watch it on or listen or whatever on MTV. And you'd be like, I like them. I'm going to go buy the album. And that's how Spotify kind of feels to me now is it's basically the radio station. Like this is how you discover music, but if you want to actually buy that music and support that artist, you're going to have to go track down a physical copy of the disc. And since everything is so freebed now, pop culture, like it's very hard, I guess, you

8:10know, for some bands, like the bands are kids are into now. It's hard to find those discs. It's hard to find those records because they don't make very many of them. So they become collectible. It's kind of like, you know, Pokemon cards, whatever. It's like there's only like 300 copies of this press or a thousand copies. And that's it. And some of the stuff you pay through the nose for, but you've got it. You own it. And you can say I have it. And I think that's that's part of it too. You can sit on your shelf, put on your wall. You know, so they said the, this is the recording industry association of America. They said revenue outpaced inflation in the first half of 2026. They said, US recorded music revenue reached six billion in the first half of 2026 up six point nine percent. Remember how Napster was supposed to kill the music industry. Yes. Physical revenue jumped 25.9 percent powered by 17.7 percent vinyl growth in a 58 percent increase in CD sales. I believe it because the younger people want that physical media. Yeah.

9:10They said with the extremely strong headline growth in retro formats, one could be excused for thinking consumers are pulling back from digital music distributors like Spotify. They're doing both. Nope. Both. The RIA, underlines every major revenue category group reflecting a healthy and increasingly diversified marketplace. So yeah, streaming did 4.9 billion. And so it's doing well too. So yeah, I think I think kids are people, consumers in general are using them in tandem. And I know that there is a fear that like AI music was going to kill Spotify or whatever two. And that's not happening either. I think it's a matter of when you were you want to listen to it. Like I know our kids both have Spotify and they have like our son does more vinyl and our daughter does more CDs. But the reason being is because sometimes you're not in a place where you can access your records or whatever. So you have music you could listen to wherever if you're on a walk, something like that, where our son listens to vinyl in his room all the time. That's what preferred method. And our daughter is always buying CDs to put in the car.

10:13And she likes listening to CDs when she's you know in her room or in the car. But you know, she's out someplace that she doesn't have access to those things and you could have music on your phone. So I think it's something that you can use all of the formats so that I don't think that they're going away with digital. But I think that there's definitely an increase in wine, the physical media for at your home or in the car or someplace that you can actually use it. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I said there are main DB's and backlash. They said to you know, streaming or whatever. They said that some consumers are increasingly frustrated with the video streaming offerings or building up home media catalogs by purchasing DVDs, blue rays, etc. I've actually been buying more DVDs like we got yard sales and stuff. One person had a whole bunch of like brand new DVDs and blue rays for like a buck or two a piece. Yes, we buy them Columbia House. That's your friend, Columbia House now. CDs, vinyl and DVDs. You make killing now. Even cassettes are coming back. Those are buying cassette players. They Columbia House now is your time.

11:14Now is your time. I've seen people wearing Columbia House t-shirts, but Columbia House was, they were predatory man. It was like, oh, we'll get you some cheap movies and cheap CDs and then you're going to be locked into our club for the next three years or whatever and have to pay. Get the rightful price for everything else. Yeah, and all the movies in the CDs cost like three times what they do at the store. So basically paying for the. But that wouldn't be a penny. You wouldn't get like, you know, you'd be like, you get so many for a penny like a dollar and then a penny, it'd be like a lot more expensive now. It'd be like 10 bucks or something. But yeah, they even point out we've started to see a bit of this in video gaming as the high profile case regarding Sony PlayStation digital game ownership as stirred some gamers in the action again, telling you guys. I was going to say you should bring that up again. Yeah, we need to go back to physical games on older consoles. We don't need the latest greatest technology. I mean, now the mod retro units are Nintendo likes, but I would love to see a new console. It was basically a PS3, PS4 level graphics.

12:16Took discs, played discs was offline unless you wanted to be online and you kept it under, you know, three or four hundred dollars and it was mostly designed for couch play. And that would be fantastic. At that point, you could just go buy an old system. You could. I'm talking. I'm talking a new system with new games from. Well, they're making new games for these too. They are making new games for these. Yeah, there's a game boy type situation to they've got got game boy type consoles. Well, yeah, the chromatic, which is really good. But no, I'm all into this now. I think this is where we need to go. And honestly, there are so many old games out there that you could never play them all in the lifetime. You could never play through them all in the life. No, a lot of them are more fun or they're more challenging and you don't have to worry about what's going to be stuck in them and you don't have to wait 13 years between games. I know, right? And then then have to pay $80 for the game and then like 50 bucks a month from now until the end of time to play it. Yeah, and then if you want any extra content or something to pay for more money, they're just going to go and dime you.

13:18Well, good luck with that because everybody starts to switch other things then they're going to have to walk it back. Oh, yeah, yeah. So there we go guys. Vote with your wallets. Are we going to wrap it up? Yes. We'll talk later. Bye.