Advocates of physical media are currently waging a veritable war of statistics. There is far from a consensus regarding the apparent dominance of digital sales worldwide.

In fact, new data regarding Assassin’s Creed Shadows paints a picture of a trend that seems to be repeating itself. Publishers are focusing primarily on the North American market to assess player habits. However loyalty to CDs and game cartridges is still going strong, specially on Asia and Europe.

In the case of Shadows, digital sales lead at 74% versus 26% in the United States, and 67% versus 33% in Canada. In Japan, the gap is narrowing, with only 52% for digital and 48% for physical copies. In the United Kingdom, the ratio is 55% to 45%.

In France, the trend is reversed, with 58% physical copies and 42% digital. Single-player games, therefore, still sell in significant numbers in physical format. The loss of revenue resulting from PlayStation’s discontinuation of the CD format in January 2028 could have an impact on this type of game.