New Report Shows First-Party PlayStation Game Sales Are Declining, But What’s the Full Story? – WGB

Stephen Totilo recently shared a chart on his Game File stack showing Sony’s first-party game sales for the fiscal year. The chart, which comes from Sony’s financial reports and is combined with Totilo’s own data, paints a stark picture: the company’s software sales have fallen from a peak of 58.4 million units in FY20 to 32.1 million units in FY25.

Needless to say, the chart quickly went viral on social media, where many people were eager to use it as evidence that the original PlayStation strategy was failing, that gamers had lost interest in Sony’s exclusives, or that modern PlayStation games simply aren’t as good as they used to be. And honestly, all of those arguments have some merit to them.

The problem is that the chart itself doesn’t tell the whole story. To be clear, Totilo’s full article is currently behind a paywall, so I can’t see what conclusions he’s drawing from the data. The following is my analysis based on a chart widely shared on the internet.

The first thing that struck me was that Sony isn’t releasing the same number of games it used to. Looking at sales numbers alone makes it easy to think that consumer demand has fallen, but software sales are not in a vacuum. A company that releases fewer games will usually sell fewer games.

With that in mind, I’ve put together a second chart that lists Sony’s first team and console releases by Sony during the fiscal year.

At first glance, this seems to explain everything.

FY20, the strongest year in Sony’s data, showed a funny arrangement in terms of numbers. Dreams, The Last of Us Part II, Ghost of Tsushima, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Demon’s Souls all arrived during the same fiscal year. Even allowing for unusual pandemic situations, that’s a cumulative exemption plan. Oh, and we had the launch of the PS5, and anyone who buys that when it’s released is going to be a huge gamer who probably bought at least a few games for their shiny new console.

Similarly, FY18 and FY19 also did not hurt. God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Detroit: Become Human, Days of Gone and Death Stranding all helped carry the PlayStation into the later years of the PS4 generation.

Case closed then, right? Sony just released a few games. Well, not really. The more I look at the data, the less convinced I am that the number of exemptions is actually the biggest factor.

Take FY24 as an example. Sony’s first-quarter sales fell to 28.9 million units, the lowest figure on the chart. However, the company released eight games in that fiscal year if we include reminders and Sony’s published projects. That’s more software than FY23 and compared to some of Sony’s strong years.

So, what is the conclusion? It should be quality and type of release.

Helldivers 2 was a huge success and Astro Bot deserved all the awards it received. However, in addition to these two, the program mainly includes small projects, reminders and games that failed to make a big commercial impact. The Concord died on arrival. LEGO Horizon Adventures is barely registered. Until Dawn Remake and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered certainly didn’t move the needle the way God of War or a new Spider-Man could. And as amazing as Astro Bot was, it doesn’t work on the same commercial level as Spider-Man, God of War or Horizon. Last we heard, it was sitting at around 1.5 million copies sold.

Looking back across the chart, a pattern begins to emerge. Sony’s strongest years weren’t the years when it released the most games. After all, if numbers were anything to go by FY24 should have been amazing. It’s the year that it released the biggest entries in its biggest franchises.

God of War. Spider Man. The horizon. The wind of Tsushima. Helldivers 2. Those are heavy lifting games, supported by a small release.

In fact, what this data can really highlight is not a decline in quality, but a growing reliance on a few blockbuster franchises.

The PS4 era introduced Horizon and Ghost of Tsushima while elevating Spider-Man to one of Sony’s biggest franchises and reinventing God of War for a new generation. The PS5 era, by comparison, produced very few new pillars capable of carrying the PlayStation software business.

Helldivers 2 is different. The game exploded beyond anyone’s expectations and became one of Sony’s biggest successes of the generation. It also happens to be external, because despite Sony looking at it from the inside as a first-party game, it’s not. It was developed by Arrowhead, an independent team, while Sony owns the Helldivers IP.

It’s hard to think of many others. The return was heavily contested. Astro Bot was highly recommended. The rise of Ronin worked well. Yet none seem to have become the kind of blockbuster franchise that can shift tens of millions of copies across multiple entries. If it does, Returnal’s follow-up Saros seems to do worse than Returnal.

That, to me, is the most interesting takeaway from Totilo’s chart. Sony’s sales decline isn’t just a matter of releasing fewer games. And it doesn’t automatically mean that PlayStation games have gotten worse, although many people would make that argument.

Instead, the data suggests that Sony’s software business is increasingly dependent on a small number of large franchises. When Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon or Ghost of Tsushima appear, sales go up. If they don’t, the company has struggled to find new ones that can fill the gap.

Sony still dominates the console market while the Xbox wanders and the Switch 2 continues to exist in its own little weird ecosystem. But there is a clear decline in first-party software sales for the PlayStation, and the data suggests that the problem isn’t just a lack of releases.

If you look at the chart, Sony’s biggest years were driven by blockbuster franchises like God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon and Ghost of Tsushima. The PlayStation Challenge doesn’t seem to be releasing more games. It finds the next franchise that can stand next to those big hitters. While previous generations of PlayStation boasted defining games, the PS5 hasn’t. Almost all of its big games have been ported to the success of the PS4, and as we look towards the release of the PS6, Sony may find itself in a weak position if it can’t make that big new blockbuster that blows minds and opens wallets.

Wolverine has that ability. But it depends on Marvel, like Spider-Man. Intergalactic: The Traitor Prophet has all the weight of Naughty Dog behind it, but fans aren’t convinced yet.

The question isn’t whether the PlayStation can still make good games. Whether it could create the next God of War, Horizon or Ghost of Tsushima. Or will Sony start looking to the past and resurrect some old franchises to carry the PlayStation to victory?

We need small, creative games like Astro Bot. It’s what keeps us interested and loving the hobby. But selling a show requires blockbusters.