PlayStation first-party game sales have dropped by more than half since 2020, but the PS5 platform itself is selling more games than ever. That contradiction is the defining story of this console generation.
New data compiled by Game File's Stephen Totilo from Sony's own financial reports shows first-party game sales peaked at 58.4 million copies in fiscal year 2020 (April 2020 to March 2021), fueled by pandemic lockdowns, PS4 swan songs like The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima, and PS5 launch titles including Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the Demon's Souls remake. The number then fell for four consecutive years, bottoming out at 28.9 million in FY24. The data lands hours before Sony's June 2026 State of Play showcase, which promises a new look at Insomniac's Wolverine game. Sony raised PS5 prices and PlayStation Plus subscription costs recently, raising the stakes for tonight's event.
Last year (FY25, ending March 2026) finally broke the streak. Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2 pushed first-party sales back up to 32.1 million. But that's still barely half of the pandemic peak. The decline stems from two problems: development times that now stretch five years or more between sequels, and a failed live-service pivot that consumed years of studio resources. Concord and its developer Firewalk were shut down. The Last of Us Online was canceled. A God of War live-service game from Bluepoint never made it to announcement. A Twisted Metal live-service game and projects at Sony Bend were also scrapped.
Some studios haven't shipped a new game in half a decade. Naughty Dog's last original release was The Last of Us Part II six years ago.
Bend Studio's last game was 2019's Days Gone. Media Molecule hasn't released anything since 2020's Dreams. The PS5 has had hits. Insomniac delivered Spider-Man 2.
Sony Santa Monica shipped God of War Ragnarok. Helldivers 2 remains the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time. But these successes haven't closed the overall gap, and remakes and remasters haven't moved the needle either.
Total game sales across the PlayStation platform tell a different story. They peaked at 338 million during the pandemic and have rebounded to nearly 320 million, approaching that record.
Sony is expected to blow past it after Grand Theft Auto VI launches this fall. The platform is thriving.
Sony's own studios are not keeping pace. That may explain Sony's recent decision to pull its single-player exclusives back from PC and return to PlayStation-only releases, a reversal of the strategy it adopted in 2020 with Horizon Zero Dawn's PC port.
