i feel like it's important to point out that a major reason physical game sales have declined is because games manufacturers intentionally hold back the physical releases of new games for months after the digital releases, thus leveraging FOMO and spoilers to force gamers into buying digital copies instead. And it's not just Sony. "Family-friendly" Nintendo has done this for many new games too, if they even bother to release a physical copy at all.
this "trend" of consumers "not buying" physical games is not a trend: it's a manipulation of numbers and consumers in order to give game companies what they want: your data.
they want you to have a digital copy that you have to play with a cloud save on an internet connected console. because, if you do this, they can see which of their games log the most hours/engagement after purchase, they can see which profile/account on your console plays which games, how and when you play in relation to your console's set timezone (is this an after-work or late night game for grownups? an after school game for kids?), they can see who you game with, what other games you play, what you favourite in the game store, what game/store pages you look at or come back to most, etc.
whereas if you did what was possible in the 90s/00s and buy a physical game with cash at a local game store and plug it into your non-internet connected console, they don't have any of that data. and they want it. badly. because it means they don't need to rely on their customers answering consumer surveys and providing them with that data. they can just have it, automatically. every time you log on.