Jay Peters | The Verge

The future of physical games is not looking great

2026-07-20T08:19:18-04:00

Grand Theft Auto VI release won’t offer a disc. | Image: Rockstar Games

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How it started

As a kid, I relished trips to Best Buy, GameStop, and the nearby mall so that I could browse video games. I loved sifting through games and chatting with my friends at the store about upcoming releases. On the lucky days I actually got a new game from the store, I treasured reading through every page of the manual on the drive home. Over the years, I built up a collection of games that I was proud of.

That was a long time ago. Shortly after college, I sold my collection of older games and hardware because I wasn’t using them and wanted the money for other things. (Probably weekends out.) Starting with the Nintendo Switch in 2017, I started buying games digitally because it was easier to just download stuff, and I wouldn’t have to accumulate physical game cases. Now, I don’t own any physical games: My Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam libraries are all digital.

I’m not the only player who has moved to mostly digital games. Digital libraries are increasingly convenient, especially as console makers have made efforts to keep backwards compatibility across generations. Some players can’t play physical games at all, as PlayStation and Xbox launched the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles with all-digital console options that were cheaper than the versions with disc drives. On PC, digital libraries through platforms like Steam have been the reality for quite some time. Capcom, one of the biggest publishers around, reported that an astounding 93 percent of its game sales were for digital copies in its last fiscal year — a figure that it expects will rise to 95.4 percent over the fiscal year. Many of the most popular games are only available digitally, like Roblox and Fortnite.

For better or worse, video game players overwhelmingly buy and play digital games. But in the span of a week, two industry giants put nails in the coffin of physical games — or perhaps even poured concrete into the grave.

How it’s going

On June 24th, Rockstar Games finally put a price tag on Grand Theft Auto VI ahead of its scheduled November 19th release on PS5 and Xbox Series X / S: $79.99 for the base edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition. The prices themselves weren’t too unexpected, as even Nintendo has dabbled with $79.99 games for its biggest titles. But what was more shocking was something buried in Rockstar’s post: The physical version of the game won’t have a disc, instead containing a download code in the box.

The announcement was a worrying sign for physical games. Selling games as codes in a box isn’t a new concept, but GTA VI will be the biggest game to do it so far. Rockstar’s choice could push more publishers to do the same for their future titles. By making the game only available on digital storefronts, players can’t easily share it with a friend or sell the game when they’re done with it.

It’s also becoming increasingly clear you can’t rely on digital storefronts. Titles can get pulled for things like licensing or the store closing down. This may not be a problem for GTA VI, as Rockstar will almost certainly make sure the game is easily available on many digital platforms for the foreseeable future, especially if it wants to give the game the same kind of legs as the 13-year-old GTA V. But with digital storefronts, you also have to hope that you aren’t locked out of your account, even by mistake, and lose access to your games. (In 2023, some PlayStation users were unexpectedly banned through no fault of their own, though Sony eventually restored access to their accounts.)

Speaking of PlayStation, just days after Rockstar’s news, Sony dropped an even bigger bomb: It announced that, starting January 2028, it would not make physical discs for any new PlayStation games.

The decision led to widespread criticism online. Sony and PlayStation got yelled at everywhere online, as Kotaku reported, and the PlayStation account didn’t make a new tweet until six days after its announcement about dropping discs. The comments section of Sony’s famous 2013 PS4 game sharing ad where one person just hands a disc to another — an ad made after Xbox announced restrictive DRM plans for the Xbox One — is filled with new comments taking jabs at Sony. Heck, Sony itself showed why killing discs is a terrible idea by, on the same day as the disc news, saying that it would be closing the digital stores for the PS3 and the PS Vita.

Sony’s announcement also drew criticism from retailers and games preservationists. “This is unfortunate news for those who still prefer buying games on physical media, and is certainly a significant hit to consumer rights, the resale market, and game creators whose businesses rely on the physical market,” said Frank Cifaldi, executive director of the Video Game History Foundation.

Sony’s own statement was clear as to why it’s making the change. “This is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs,” Sony said in its announcement. “This transition will enable us to align more closely with how most of our community prefers to access and play games today.” The company’s numbers prove it, too: In the fourth quarter of its 2025 fiscal year, Sony reported that the “Full game software digital download ratio” of games on PS4 and PS5 was 85 percent.

What happens next

We have to see if Grand Theft Auto VI actually releases on November 19th and if it will ever come out on disc. Despite two major delays, it seems likely the game will at least launch as planned, especially because Rockstar gave the game a price and is pushing preorders.

We’ll also have to see what Microsoft and Nintendo might do. Xbox hasn’t announced what it’s thinking about for discs for Project Helix, its next generation console, but The Verge’s Tom Warren reports that Xbox will “likely soon” stop making physical discs for Xbox games. However, Warren reports that the company is testing a feature that would let you digitize your physical game collection.

Nintendo will probably stick with physical games for a while. According to its last fiscal year report, digital makes up 54.6 percent of game sales, so physical is still a big part of its business. The Switch 2 is also only a year old, and it seems extremely unlikely that Nintendo would stop making physical games for hardware it will be supporting for a long time to come. However, with the Switch 2, Nintendo gives developers the option to sell game-key cards, which are physical carts you can borrow and resell but don’t actually have a game’s data on them. Instead, they serve as keys to let you download a game to your system.

Game stores and preservationists also have to adjust to the fact that physical games are going to be harder to come by. Cifaldi noted that museums and archives have already been preparing for this kind of future “with the expectation that putting discs on a shelf isn’t going to be a long-term solution for preserving new games.” But he called on trade groups to offer solutions to legally preserve digital content for research — efforts that the Entertainment Software Association has previously opposed. “The industry needs to meaningfully come to the table on this issue, because asking museums to download a copy of Grand Theft Auto VI and hope it’ll run in 50 years is not a preservation solution,” Cifaldi says.

Sony now has to navigate an awkward period where it’s launching new games but dealing with pushback from players wanting physical discs. While Sony has been subject to severe blowback after its announcement, it seems unlikely it will reverse course. It’s already repurposing its last PlayStation disc-making factory, after all.

By the way

The PS5 Pro, Sony’s top-end PlayStation, does not come with a disc drive; that costs an additional $79. Following a recent price hike that spiked the PS5 Pro’s cost to $899.99, that means a PS5 Pro with a disc drive costs nearly $1,000.
PlayStation’s own studios are now in the awkward spot of having to confirm that physical versions will be on disc, as Insomniac has for September’s Marvel’s Wolverine and Santa Monica Studio did for God of War Laufey. That Laufey confirmation also signals that the game, which hadn’t been given a release window, will launch before January 2028.
For music, physical media sales — including CDs — are reportedly on the rise.

Read this

Comedian Trevor Noah weighed in on PlayStation’s news, saying that “for a lot of gamers physical discs are the only way they could afford to play games because they could get them secondhand. You can also give games to your younger siblings, which is a great way to introduce them to the games you were playing.”
In a post titled “Sony Nerfs Videogame Ownership,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out that “Unlike other digital media like film and TV, video games require a ton of storage. Access to high speed internet is still abysmal in the US, making the high-speeds needed for digital game downloads a luxury some of us may take for granted.”
A day after the GTA VI news, Circana analyst Mat Piscatella posted a chart that neatly sums up what’s going on: sales of physical games peaked long ago, back in 2009.

More games should be on rails (literally)

2026-07-09T17:36:39-04:00

It’s been a good few weeks for games on rails. Nintendo’s Star Fox remake wisely kept the tightly scripted, action-packed levels from Star Fox 64 largely the same, and they’re still fun to fly through nearly 20 years later. Denshattack!, a new game from Undercoders, similarly features levels packed with carefully orchestrated sequences to great effect. Except instead of flying through space as an unnervingly realistic anthropomorphic fox, you’re flying — and flipping, and spinning, and grinding — through Japan while driving a blindingly fast train.

Calling Denshattack! a train game radically undersells what you actually do. Across a bright and colorful version of Japan, you’ll tear and trick your way through towns and landscapes like you’re playing a supercharged version of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. You fly through levels like a bullet, drift around corners and try to catch a boost, and leap off ramps to do skateboarding-inspired stunts. Imagine if Sega made a cel-shaded Sonic game for the Dreamcast where he drove a train, and you’re in the ballpark of what actually playing Denshattack! feels like.

Even in its early stages, Denshattack! is thrilling, but as you explore the game’s 10 worlds, you’ll slowly get new abilities that turn you into a supercharged acrobat. Before you know it, you’ll be grinding rails, riding on graffiti-filled walls, looping around tunnels, catching wind currents to fly through the air, and flipping your gravity to drive upside down, sometimes all in succession. If you fill up an energy bar by scoring enough points, you can even ride a magical rainbow track that unfurls in front of you like some kind of magical Rainbow Road. And it’s all backed by an upbeat, catchy soundtrack.

I loved barreling through the game’s levels, and I eagerly awaited each turn of the track to see what unexpected surprise I’d run into. Just a very limited selection of highlights: grinding along a swordfish’s nose, precariously dodging blades in a sawmill, and hitting baseballs back to a gang leader in her track-filled baseball stadium — and then, in a later level, challenging that leader again as she piloted a sandworm train.

It works so well because it’s all on rails. For the most part, you don’t have to worry about how you get from place to place. The track will generally take you where you need to go. What matters more is how you react to the twists, turns, and unexpected obstacles the game throws your way — and which sick tricks you’ll pull off with a flick of a joystick as you leap from track to track. That gives the developers a lot of leeway to toss you into action-packed scenarios and tightly plot out the sequences of everything you’ll have to deal with. Each level is typically just a couple minutes long, which helps keep things snappy.

At times, it can be a lot. You go really fast, so you have to respond to things quickly. The game helpfully signals turns and obstacles with various signs that pop up on screen. But as you learn new mechanics, there are a lot of different moves to remember, and in the moment I’d often trip up and press the wrong button or just slam into whatever was in the way on the track. Thankfully, checkpoints are generous and bring you back in a second or two, so you can tackle a tricky section repeatedly without much penalty.

The game also lets you make it as hard or as easy as you want. After you finish each level, you’ll see a results screen that grades you on things like how many points you earned, how quickly you finished the level, how many collectibles you found, and if you completed any of the per-level “dares.” If you want to chase medals on all of those, you can. But you can also ignore them completely and just focus on finishing each level, which is what I did.

Like other on-rails games, however, Denshattack! occasionally felt repetitive. Each region has the same general structure, meaning you’ll tackle the same types of levels over and over again. The game also has a lightweight story, but I mostly mashed through it. Like Star Fox, this isn’t a game you’ll be playing for the narrative; it’s all about the levels.

But those are nitpicks. The sheer maximalism and expertly crafted levels meant that every time I started a new one, I couldn’t wait to see where the rails would take me next.

^{Denshattack! is available now on Nintendo Switch 2, PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X / S.}

TikTok is testing an AI likeness detection tool

2026-07-17T15:34:30-04:00

TikTok is starting to test an opt-in tool that scans for AI likenesses and lets creators report them to the company, as spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra. The tool is initially being tested with “some” US creators, TikTok US spokesperson Zachary Kizer tells The Verge. YouTube has been working on a similar tool and recently made it available to all adult users.

Creators who are part of TikTok’s test and want to use the tool will first have to verify their identity with a company called Jumio. You’ll have to do a real-time selfie scan and an ID check, but Kizer says that “TikTok does not retain ID documents, and facial information is used only for likeness matching and to help identify potential unauthorized uses of a creator’s likeness.”

After verification, TikTok’s system scans for AI-generated content potentially using a creator’s likeness. From there, a creator can review what TikTok found and potentially report unauthorized posts and accounts.

Apple Music is getting a price hike

2026-07-17T14:25:53-04:00

Apple Music is more expensive now. In the US, an individual plan now costs $11.99 per month, a $1 bump up from the previous $10.99 price. A family plan now costs $19.99 per month, up from $16.99, and a student plan costs $6.99 per month, up from $5.99. Apple, in a statement to Music Business Worldwide, says it is increasing prices “as a result of rising licensing costs.”

Music Business Worldwide also reports that prices gone up in the UK and Europe, and the publication “understands” that hikes are hitting other countries as well. Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.

Apple Music last got a price increase in October 2022 alongside hikes to Apple TV Plus and Apple One. The company is also reportedly raising prices for AppleCare Plus subscriptions for Macs and iPads. Spotify recently increased its prices in the US as well, hiking up a Spotify Premium plan from $11.99 per month to $12.99 per month. In other music industry news, CD sales in the US have reportedly been going up.

Apple has also increased some prices of Apple One subscriptions, MacMagazine reports. In the US, the Family plan has increased to $27.95 per month and the Premier plan has increased to $39.95, both hikes of $2 from the previous costs. The individual plan remains $19.95 per month.

Update, July 17th: Added Apple One price hikes.

Fortnite is getting a bunch of AI-powered ‘personas’

2026-07-16T17:31:58-04:00

Get ready for more AI characters in Fortnite. Developer Epic Games is going to let Fortnite creators publish experiences featuring characters with AI-powered voices starting on July 30th, and ahead of that launch, it’s created 36 characters with “consistent voices and personas” that creators can use as NPCs. The characters include Fortnite staples like Agent Jonesy, Peely (the banana), Fishstick (a walking fish), and Cuddle Team Leader (who wears a pink bear mascot head).

Epic tested the waters of AI characters with last year’s Darth Vader NPC that was powered by James Earl Jones’ voice — a collaboration that Jones’ estate signed off on. Even though players quickly got Vader to swear, something Epic fixed quickly, the company announced shortly after debuting Vader that Fortnite creators would be able to make AI-powered characters of their own.

The voices for these new personas rely on “performances captured from independent professional actors specifically for use in developer-made islands,” Epic says. “The actors agreed to have their performances used to develop voice models that create the spoken responses for these LLM-powered Fortnite characters.”

Shiina, a Fortnite content creator, made a video featuring some of the voices:

36x FORTNITE SKINS NOW HAVE AI VOICES

Epic Games says these voices are powered by performances from independent professionals who agreed to have their performances used to develop voice models

UEFN creators can begin using these AI voices on July 30 pic.twitter.com/B8nuCOSwOq
— Shiina (@ShiinaBR) July 16, 2026

Down the line, it sounds like Epic wants to make characters featuring voices from the well-known actors that have appeared in the Fortnite universe, but it will have to secure the right approvals to do so. “Our next step is to work with the relevant guilds and character voice actors who have previously worked on Fortnite Battle Royale to explore opportunities to make their original voices available across the Fortnite ecosystem,” the company says.

Epic started letting creators test their own AI characters earlier this year, but it laid out a few ground rules to try and keep them from becoming problematic.

Why are people buying so many CDs?

2026-07-17T06:15:05-04:00

CD sales are apparently going up, reportedly thanks to fans realizing they’re an affordable way to support their favorite artists. According to a new report from research firm Luminate, 16.3 million CDs were sold in the first half of 2026 in the US, a 16 percent increase year-over-year. The growth in CD sales was driven by “collection building, price accessibility, massive albums such as BTS’ ARIRANG and a strong K-pop release schedule,” Luminate says.

Even if you remove K-pop sales from the data, CD sales still went up in the US, increasing 6.7 percent. And it appears that some people aren’t even buying the CDs to listen to them, as Luminate’s report notes that “approximately” half of the Gen Z and millennial buyers picking up CDs don’t own a CD player.

The data suggests that “the CD has been recontextualized from a functional audio format into an affordable collectible,” Luminate says. “This behavior underscores that for younger generations, the act of buying physical music is as much about aesthetic ownership and direct financial support for the artist as it is listening to the music on the product itself.”

Physical album sales — vinyls, CDs, and cassettes — were up overall as well, increasing 7.8 percent year-over-year. Vinyl sales were at 21.8 million units and cassette sales hit around 205,000 units, Luminate’s Denise Schenasi tells The Verge. The higher vinyl sales continues a trend of the format outselling CDs that has been going for a few years now.

Roblox will let people use AI to make games on their phone

2026-07-16T13:26:35-04:00

Roblox is about to let people make games with AI right inside its mobile app, which could make a platform that’s already filled with content of questionable quality feel even more overloaded. The company has embraced AI with open arms, including a preview of an ambitious take on AI world models similar to Google’s Project Genie, an AI foundation model that developers can use to generate 3D game assets, and an AI assistant chatbot that can help developers while they’re building games. The tools announced today will make using AI for Roblox game development far more accessible, though the company is starting small at first.

The new feature is called Build, which “brings mobile-first AI creation to Roblox, allowing anyone to turn text prompts into a basic game directly within the Roblox mobile app,” according to a blog post. Build handles “gameplay mechanics, environment, characters, visual style, sound, and more,” and it’s powered by both Roblox’s own AI models and open-source models.

Roblox is positioning Build as something that allows “rapid exploration and refinement of ideas,” but it’s easy to imagine that people might start churning out games because of how much the AI tools will lower the barrier to entry. However, the company claims that games made with Build will be ranked by the same retention-based criteria as other Roblox experiences, so games that aren’t played theoretically won’t get picked up by Roblox’s discovery systems.

“Our discovery systems are designed to highlight games with long-term retention, which doesn’t include AI slop,” Roblox says. “The quality of games on the homepage isn’t changing: If no one plays it—no one can find it.”

Initially, Build will be available starting July 28th in public alpha to users in New Zealand who are at least nine years old and have verified their ages. Published games will be playable globally by users 16 and older. A “base-level” version of Build will be available at no cost, though there will be “additional paid options for power users.” Roblox doesn’t have specifics to share about those paid options right now, and the company will share more “as we continue to roll out to more regions in the coming months,” spokesperson Juliet Chaitin-Lefcourt tells The Verge.

Roblox is also working on new AI agents to help developers that will be available in both Build and Studio, including a playtesting agent, an analytics agent, and an agent that can run experiments to help improve engagement, retention, and monetization. These will ship over the “coming months.”

Roblox is shutting down its video chat service

2026-07-16T13:03:14-04:00

Roblox will be shutting down Roblox Connect, its video calling service introduced in 2023.

Roblox Connect let you video chat with other people using your Roblox avatar, which would be able to mimic the movements you were making in real life. You could also run around with people on the call in a shared virtual environment. But in a statement, the company says that users 13 and older “predominantly” chat via the platform’s party voice chat functionality for calls.

“Roblox Connect is being discontinued today, including both the developer-facing APIs and the Roblox Connect feature itself,” Roblox spokesperson Angela Allison tells The Verge. “Users 13 and up predominantly use our more recent Party Voice feature instead to make private voice calls with Trusted Friends on Roblox.”

In a post last month announcing the shutdown of the APIs, a Roblox staffer noted that Party Voice “handles private voice chat in a way that’s more capable and better suited to how players use Roblox today.”

To be able to use Party Voice, a user’s age must be verified by Roblox to be 13 or older.

When Connect was announced, Roblox said it intended to open-source the feature. I asked Roblox about that, and here’s what spokesperson Angela Allison told me: “The Roblox Connect experience (game) was uncopylocked — so while it was published anybody could copy the code. As the game is now archived, the source code is no longer available.”

Update, July 16th: Added context from Roblox.

Something’s glowing on the Pixel 11’s camera bar

2026-07-15T14:38:08-04:00

A new teaser for Google’s upcoming Pixel 11 lineup reveals that the phones will feature some kind of glowing orb on the camera bar, as reported by 9to5Google.

Google’s store page for the Pixel 11 has a short video that shows the glowing, color-shifting orb to the one side of the camera bar. The store page doesn’t share any more information about it, but perhaps the orb is the “Pixel Glow” light feature that has popped up in Android 17 betas. If I had to guess, the orb will likely have something to do with Google’s Gemini AI.

We probably won’t have to wait too much longer to learn what the orb is all about. Google has announced an August 12th launch event for new Pixel hardware, and the teaser for that announcement also featured a look at the Pixel 11 — though without the glowing orb. The Pixel lineup is rumored to get more expensive, but at least the Pixel 11 colors might rule this year.

OpenAI may announce a ChatGPT smart speaker this year

2026-07-14T17:26:32-04:00

OpenAI’s first device is set to be a smart speaker that lets you talk with ChatGPT, according to a report from Bloomberg. The device apparently won’t have a screen, but will use a camera and additional sensors to “understand” your environment.

The report comes just days after Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI that accused the AI company of stealing hardware secrets. OpenAI, in a new statement on Tuesday, said that it is “not aware of any evidence that this complaint has merit.”

Sources tell Bloomberg that OpenAI’s device will also feature a rechargeable battery that will allow users to carry it with them. It will offer smart home controls, along with the ability to play media, answer questions, and respond to messages. Bloomberg additionally says that the device will use GPT-Live, OpenAI’s upgraded voice model announced last week.

Bloomberg reports that the device will use “mechanical elements that can move on their own” in order to “connect on a humanlike level with users.” In February, The Information reported on a similar device equipped with a camera that can recognize items or people nearby.

The rumored speaker will launch in 2027 as part of OpenAI’s plans for a bigger hardware lineup, which currently includes “roughly” five devices, according to Bloomberg. OpenAI is collaborating with former Apple designer Jony Ive on the new devices following its nearly $6.5 billion acquisition of his design company, io Products.

OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has also been teasing a Codex gadget called the Codex Micro, made in partnership with Work Louder, that’s scheduled to release on July 15th.