The superfast connected future would indicate the future of media consumption is all about either streaming content or downloading it, not buying actual physical media. But reports indicate the decline of the physical entertainment market is slowing up rather than accelerating towards oblivion.
Taking the sales of movies, music and games into account the physical goods market shrank by only 3% in the second quarter of this year. Compare that with a 7% decrease over the same period of last year and that's a relatively dramatic change.
The big performers out of those sales though were the boxed video games.
Gamers are still locked into the physical media mode, particularly the console gamers where digital downloads are still nowhere near as prevalent as in the PC gaming space. Even though revenue from the sales of the Xbox One and PS4 hardware has shrank - thanks to slowing demand and price drops - demand for the software is growing.
"Games have been the strongest performer over the last quarter, supported by sales growth in software for the current generation of consoles," Fiona Keenan, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel, told MCV.
It's not just the big guys, like Tesco, Argos, Amazon and GAME, who are seeing growth, even the smaller independent shops are experiencing a growth in physical game sales year-on-year to the tune of around £4.5 million.
Cross the streams
The decline of video content has slowed too, despite the increases seen across Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming subscriptions. The launch of Ultra HD Blu-ray towards the end of the year may help slow the shrinking of the market even more.
Where things aren't so rosy is on the music side.
Combine the launch of Apple Music, and it's 11 million-or-so subs, with the continued growth of the Spotify behemoth, as well as a host of smaller services, the sales of physical music media is continuing to decline with sales down £3 million year-on-year.
Via MCV.
