Over the last few decades, we have seen rapid advancements in gaming technology to the point that we now have gaming services that work like Netflix. But with all these advancements, some things are lost, like how Walmart will eliminate physical Xbox games in 2024.
Summary
- The fact gaming companies are toning down on the production of physical games is not new. A whole store effectively drops them.
- Walmart will more than likely phase out these games in stages, but it sounds like most physical games could be gone by the end of 2024
- This will not be the only physical media phased out as they will do the same to DVDs, CDs, and Blu-rays.
I would expect to see this trend continue in 2024. I've heard rumblings that Wal-Mart is dropping physical Xbox games soon, and I have to imagine further cuts to physical gaming sections will be made as we get deeper into next year. https://t.co/iKIEaDEGmf
— Josh Fairhurst (@LimitedRunJosh) October 12, 2023
The latest news comes from John Fairhurst, who was responding to Wario64 on X (formerly known as Twitter). Wario64 has posted that Walmart will drop most forms of physical media, including DVDs and Blu-rays.
In a response to that post, John Fairhurst said they planned to do the same thing with Xbox games. Now, for various reasons, this is understandable, but it is also shocking and a little concerning.
You can understand that stores may not want to stock items that people aren’t buying a lot of. So this news does seem all that out of the ordinary considering that multiple companies, including Xbox, have been doing it themselves.
In several markets, Xbox does not sell physical discs of games, so it is not surprising that it will start doing this in the American market as well. It sounds like Walmart will ditch many games in 2024 and even more throughout different periods of that year.
The big problem with this concept is the idea of digital games as a whole. Digital games are a great invention that helps people have greater accessibility to games because they don’t have to worry about storage. The big problem with these games is that you don’t own them.
You do not own the media product you bought whenever you buy anything digitally. Instead, you are getting a license for said piece of media, which is still fully controlled by the company. Technically, most companies can pull those licenses whenever they want, and while most never would, it is still a concerning thought that people don’t own the thing they are buying.
Now, not all digital products are treated this way, and if the media were to adopt a stance of ownership for the purchase, that would be far better. The simple fact is that current media isn’t, though; while some people are okay with that, many should not be given the money this costs. Only time will tell how this will resolve itself, but it is something that we will keep an eye on in the future.
This is all we have on how Walmart will eliminate physical Xbox games in 2024.
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Jace loves both video games and writing, so he thought the best career was to write about video games. He attended Full Sail University and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing. He joined Gamsual in 2022, and when not covering video game news, he is often building and strategizing in simulation and RTS games. Xbox: Alchemist5966
