Walmart Reportedly Starting to Purge Physical Games Next Week

Walmart is reportedly gearing up to start getting rid of some of its physical video games. We are in a digital age now and have been for quite some time, but now we are starting to see the full ramifications on physical media. For years, you had to buy everything on a CD or disc, but as the internet has evolved, things have become more accessible through digital means. Songs, movies, and even video games have been easy to download in a matter of hours, if not minutes. For video games, you no longer have to go to the store, you can buy the game right when it releases and even download it prior to its release in order to play it as soon as it's available. It's convenient, but it also means less ownership. One day, it's possible the license for these games will be taken from you. We've seen with things like PT that they have the power to make things completely unplayable unless it is already installed on your hardware.

With that said, we are moving further into a digital future and losing access to physical media. Best Buy has purged its movie section and other retailers like Target have dramatically reduced their movie options. It looks like video games may be next. As reported by Andrew Marmo and Wario64 on Twitter, Walmart will supposedly be getting rid of Xbox games like Starfield starting next week. An internal memo has surfaced online stating that all copies will be reduced to 3 cents and sales will be blocked by the store's system and then removed from the store. As of right now, it appears this is only for Xbox games, but this move was reported last October and it seems to be coming to fruition. It was noted that Microsoft is funding this move for Walmart in the memo, suggesting it may be Microsoft's decision and not Walmart's. Nevertheless, Microsoft voluntarily removing what is arguably its biggest game from the shelves of one of America's biggest retailers is not a good sign for physical media enjoyers.

I saw this memo earlier as well (not through these same exact screenshots) – Walmart will prep to remove Starfield Xbox physical copies from their stores but you could get very lucky and get it for 3 cents on Monday (the memo says the system will block the purchase) https://t.co/LUBIq0sbaq

— Wario64 (@Wario64) January 19, 2024

It's unclear at this time why Microsoft would be in favor of this, but it may suggest that Xbox is moving more to a digital-only future. There were leaks that suggested a future Xbox model will be digital only, but it's unclear when that may happen (or if it will still happen). We also have no idea what this means for other video games, such as PlayStation. Walmart appears to only be removing Xbox games, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens. Starfield has only been out since September, so it's disappointing to see it had such a short shelf life at Walmart, but you can likely continue to find it at other retailers like GameStop for the foreseeable future. We've reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this story if we hear anything back.