Last week, it was reported that Best Buy was going to stop selling physical media in 2024, and this was eventually confirmed to be the case for TV shows and movies, although video games apparently won't be affected.
We're also now hearing similar things related to Walmart. Limited Run's CEO took to Twitter a few days ago to suggest the company might have plans to stop selling "physical Xbox games" in the near future:
"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."
When asked whether it was just Xbox games that would be affected, they advised the following:
"That's my understanding as far as Wal-Mart is concerned, but I'd expect deeper changes in their gaming department as time goes on. Retail is becoming more and more challenging and in-store game sales are declining, only makes sense they'll reduce the department in time."
We don't know about you, but we're not totally surprised by this. Obviously the Xbox Series S doesn't include a disc drive anyway, and we do tend to hear that third-party games sell worse on Xbox Series X than PlayStation 5.
That said, Microsoft probably wouldn't be too pleased seeing Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 games on Walmart's shelves alongside an all-digital Xbox section. It's important to keep in mind these are just "rumblings" for now though, and we're still waiting on Walmart to provide clarification - we'll see what happens in the coming weeks and months!