Nintendo just made an unusual decision—and it’s going to be good for business

Sony sparked a backlash among gamers with its decision to phase out physical game discs. Now Nintendo is reassuring its customers that it has no plans to follow suit anytime soon. “We go off what the consumer prefers, and take that into account very heavily,” Bill van Zyll, VP and general manager for Nintendo in Latin America, said in a recent interview. “We also have a platform that was just launched. We’re barely just over a year into [Nintendo Switch 2]. It’s got both digital and physical—that capability. There’s no plans to ditch physical.” Van Zyll’s comments are more of a reaffirmation than a new policy announcement. But in the current gaming environment, they’re giving Nintendo loyalists reason to breathe a sigh of relief. Physical game sales have been a hot topic since Sony’s announcement earlier this year. The company plans to stop producing physical discs for all new PlayStation games starting in January 2028. From an economic standpoint, it’s hard to fault the decision. Just 15% of the PlayStation games sold in the fourth quarter of last year were physical copies. And as Sony develops its next-generation hardware, it’s undoubtedly trying to keep costs as low as possible…

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