GameStop Isn't Worried About PlayStation Discs Because Games Are "Irrelevant" To The Business
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GameStop isn’t interested in selling… games. I mean, that’s not exactly news if you’ve walked into one recently. The bulk of stock littering the aisles is merchandise and memorabilia. But to hear CEO Ryan Cohen say that physical games are “totally irrelevant” to the business is startlingly open.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV, he was asked about the recent announcement that Sony is planning to halt physical game disc production in 2028, which not only means pulling the plug on the second-hand market, but slowly phasing out major retailers. Reports suggest that PlayStation will continue to sell ‘physical’ copies, i.e. GTA 6-style code in boxes, but these will essentially serve as digital tokens, and it’s hard to imagine there being much demand for the plastic paperweights you’re left with after redeeming them.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cohen said. “It doesn’t matter at all. Software… it mattered in the past. Software today makes up less than 12% of the business, and collectibles make up over half the business. So it’s totally, totally irrelevant.”
I mean, I get it. Cohen claimed that “the company is making more money than it’s ever made in its history” despite physical sales being at an all-time low. But it’s like Dick’s Sporting Goods saying that sports are irrelevant to the business—it’s bizarre.
GameStop Wants To Build "An In-Game, Digital Marketplace"
The focus for Cohen right now is to “unlock live commerce” and use an eBay-style infrastructure (after his failed $55.5 billion acquisition bid in May) to “build out an in-game, digital marketplace.” It’s no surprise then that GameStop closed 590 stores in 2025, which has only continued into 2026. Clearly, the focus is an online marketplace, which is, again, unsurprising.
Cohen’s claim to fame was founding the e-commerce pet business Chewy in 2011, which he sold to PetSmart for $3.35 billion: “I want you to look your viewers in the eyes and tell them, ‘Are you gonna bet on an entrenched management team running the business, or me, someone that went head-to-head against Amazon selling 30-pound bags of dog food, turned around a very tough situation at GameStop, and now the company is making lots of money?’”
So, even with Sony killing physical discs, GameStop is confident that it can survive. It just might be unrecognizable from its brick and mortar retail days. Then again, this is the same company that dabbled in NFTs and crypto, and relied on memes to boost its stock—let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
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