Sony killing physical games ‘doesn’t matter at all,’ says GameStop CEO
Physical video games are no longer a significant or an important part of GameStop’s business.
GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen has shared his thoughts on Sony ending PlayStation disc production, saying “it doesn’t matter at all”.
Cohen gave the quotes in an interview with Bloomberg, saying Sony’s all-digital move is “totally irrelevant.”
He continued: “Software, it mattered in the past. Software today makes up less than 12% of the business, and collectibles makes up over half the business. So it’s totally, totally irrelevant.”
While this may sound like an unusual sentiment to come from the CEO of a retail store known for video games, as the Bloomberg article highlights, software sales only account for 18% of GameStop’s business.
Collectibles – like Pokémon trading cards – have become a much larger chunk of the business, accounting for 41% of sales. This is a large change to what was once the main driver of sales, which was buying and reselling physical video games.
Cohen said GameStop made $143 million during Q1 2026, calling this “the highest operating earnings in the company’s history”.
He went on to claim: “Everybody in the media wants GameStop to fail. Explain that to me, explain to me why everybody in the mainstream media wants GameStop to fail.”
GameStop made a $56 billion bid to buy eBay in May, which was rejected by the company after it called the bid “neither credible nor attractive.”
This wasn’t the first contentious business decision the company has made in the past. The retailer announced an NFT marketplace in 2022, which was shut down after 18 months.
