Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei has been a huge hit for PlayStation. After five-years of declining first-party game sales, the open-world action game helped to fix Sony’s biggest problem.
Reported by GameFile, PlayStation’s first-party game sales have dropped year-on-year since April 2020. Since then, the PS5 software suite has seemed quite drab and weak, but Ghost of Yotei revitalised sales of Sony’s expensive AAA games.
As PlayStation continues to raise prices of its consoles in response to evolving market conditions, extensive first-party software is required to keep customers interested. However, since 2020, software has not kept players engaged.
According to the report, Sony’s push for remakes and remasters of games like The Last of Us Part 1 and Demon’s Souls, as well as multiplayer titles like Marathon and Concord, have not moved the needle, outside of Helldivers 2.
From the company’s peak sales in 2020 of 58.4 million units, PlayStation first-party software plummeted to just 28.9 million units in 2024. However, the release of Ghost of Yotei pushed the needle up for the first time in half-a-decade with software sales hitting 32.1 million units.
Of course, Sony’s peak sales came amidst the global pandemic and the release of a new console. However, sales were still considerably higher prior to current numbers back in 2018. The issue, then, is whether or not Sony can continue to push sales up following Yotei’s release.
PlayStation does have a number of strong AAA single-player titles ahead of it. Later this year, Insomniac’s long-awaited Wolverine launches, and there’s hope that another Spider-Man game will come not long after. Additionally, Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet is expected to release sometime in late 2027. After that, though, the slate is worryingly clear.
