With PS4 and Xbox One, digital is finally a viable revenue generator for publishers

The inevitably that digital will replace physical games didn’t really come to fruition with the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, but it looks like it has a much better chance of doing so this time around.

With Xbox One and PlayStation 4 offering digital releases for every major game the same day these hit retail, the gaming industry managed to generate $851 million in spending in July, according to intelligence firm SuperData Research. That’s up 6 percent from the same period in 2013. Downloadable content on consoles and PC reached $247 million, which is up from $201 million year-over-year. That number grew despite, as SuperData points out, a lack of big new releases for the month. One of the potential reasons for that is that more people are turning to digital on consoles than ever before because of bigger hard drives and improved network infrastructures on the new consoles.