The evolution of eSports as an industry has been a splendid journey. Nevertheless, there are always speculations that run around the trends that might change in the coming years in the industry. Recently, the gaming industry analyst, Mat Piscatella, anticipates that as physical media declines, AAA digital-only games will become increasingly common. This is an interesting prediction as gaming giants like Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo lay blueprints for upcoming projects.

The community has seen massive growth in the fan following and streaming culture, witnessing the climb of eSports to the peak. The analysis further predicts that while big titles will be the norm for Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo might not be catching up this faster to the race.

“Nintendo Likely Won’t Move As Fast”: Mat Piscatella makes strong predictions

Over the next two years, more publishers, developers, and even platform owners are expected to embrace digital-only releases, says Mat Piscatella who is an analyst at Circana (previously NPD group). The report claims that  Digital-only AAA games may become the norm by 2028. Additionally, new adopters like Nintendo and Microsoft, whose initial price rises were for games like Redfall and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, continued the new $69.99 price point that was instituted in 2020 for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S titles. 

Taking his predictions to Twitter he wrote,” Digital-only AAA releases are here. Over the next 2 years, this trend will accelerate, and by 2028 or so I think it’ll be the norm for most Xbox and PS releases. Nintendo likely won’t move as fast, but then again it’s Nintendo and they’re always full of surprises.” Supporting his tweet he further added, “I don’t like it either but the digital share rates are hitting the tipping point.”

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Third-Party publishers like Limited Run and THQ Nordic to step into physical distribution?

This is definitely an intriguing estimation of the industry for the next half-decade. Fans believe the transition seems logical for giants like Nintendo as it would provide major cost-cutting for giant titles. Some ardent fans are feeling sad at the news of physical games nearing an end. The news also brought a lot of interesting divided reactions on the social media platform. Breaking down the predictions made by Mat Piscatella further here is how the fans reacted to them.

Fans give their interesting predictions post the analysis. 

“Digital and physical both are important”, tweets a fan.

Another user expresses his concern on the report.

What is your take on the prediction? Let us know in the comments.

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