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SvennoJ on 03 December 2016
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nanarchy said:
SvennoJ said:

Yet they are the ones trading games in and keeping the 2nd hand market in business, while buying the games at large retail stores that advertise them. The average internet connection is also a lot slower than what you would likely find on this site.

No the average consumer isn't doing that at all. Most people buy very few games digitally or otherwise and don't tradein. You have various markets within gaming, there is definitely a sizable section that wait and simply play/tradein old games, I would be shocked though if that amounted to more than 20% of gamers, haven't seen any official figures around that, happy to be pointed at something that says I am wrong though. This site while a poor representation of the average consumer or gamer is likely far better indicator of the average internet connection.

PS: not sure about where you live, but just about every retailer I see has shrunk the gaming section (used and new) as physical instore purchases have been declining for years now.

I only go to a dedicated game shop, reducing shelf space for games wouldn't make sense there :) What I do see is that used games take up about as much shelf space as new games, actually more since 6th gen games don't have new copies anymore, and 7th gen new section is rapidly shrinking, if not gone already.

I can't find much online, just for UK it was 31% of gamers bought at least one second hand game in 2013, so indeed not that big.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/uk-pre-owned-games-market-made-more-than-79m-in-2013/0132440

In 2014: £3.944bn total market size which includes £1.082bn for digital console and PC content, £113m on pre-owned software and £935m on boxed software. 51% digital, 44% physical, 5% pre-owned.
In 2015: £4.190bn total market size which inclused £1.224bn (+17%) for digital console and PC content, £123m (+9%) on pre-owned software and £904 (-3%) on boxed software. 54% digital, 40% physical, 5.5% pre-owned.
http://ukie.org.uk/press-release/2016/02/uk-games-market-soars-past-%C2%A341bn

So yeah you are right, the second hand market is tiny. Digital is already bigger than boxed, although that includes DLC, season passes, online subs and digital only games. Second hand market is of no concern anymore to the industry. https://www.wired.com/2016/01/used-games-2/


For the world, including everything, digital is by far the biggest
https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/digital-games-market-worth-83-2-billion-2016/
Globally, 83.6% of the $99.6 billion games market is generated through digital channels: $83.2 billion. A little less than half of these digital game revenues comes from the mobile segment. Around one quarter of the PC and console segments is still generated through physical boxed products, mostly coming from console gaming.

Console gaming is the last bastion for physical releases.


https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/digital-games-market-worth-83-2-billion-2016/


Anyway long tangent, still no wiser on what percentage of AAA console games are bought digitally vs physical. One thing physical has on digital, is gifting games. I'm quite sure Santa doesn't put a voucher under the tree for dad to enter his credit card details and download Jimmie's new game ;) Although perhaps I'm old fashioned and that's what parents do nowadays.