Ryugarr

Here's how PlayStation Studios games from the past year have sold on PS5 (@alineaanalytics estimates) Ghost of Yotei has been a resounding success for Sony since launching exclusively on PS5 back in October. It’s amassed 4.8M copies sold, generated almost $350M in revenue, and is still selling. For the past fortnight (let’s reclaim that word!), Yotei has had its first PlayStation Store discount (down 29% to $49.69), and we’ve seen a clear bump since. In those two weeks, Yotei shifted an extra 250K copies. Players are sinking their teeth in, too. Average playtime overall is 47.7 hours (median 45.5), and around 7% of players have logged more than 100 hours. Fair play. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach has now sold 1.7M copies on PS5, amounting to gross revenue of $116M. Decent result, but you’ve got to imagine Sony and Kojima wanted a bit more. A wrinkle is that two weeks after the Steam port in March (9 months after PS5), DS2 sold 70K copies on PS5, its best two-week stretch since launch on Sony’s platform. There was a price drop to $50, but this was the third time it had hit that price, so the cross-platform marketing was doing work of its own. We saw the same effect with Stellar Blade on PS5 last year when its Steam version landed, and there, no discount was involved. MLB The Show 26 has sold 745K on PS5, generating over $50M, with almost 95% of its audience in North America. Over 30% of MLB players have logged 100-plus hours, and the game has held PS5 daily actives of around 500K since launch. So MLB is sticky with high engagement, but MLB The Show 26 is selling slower on PS5 than last year’s edition, which had moved roughly 1.2M copies by this point. Whether that’s because Americans are eyeing up the FIFA World Cup or something else remains to be seen. Either way, a loyal base that’s quietly shrinking is worth watching (unlike baseball, in my humble Welsh opinion). Saros has sold 406K on PS5, generating $30M. It’s a fantastic game with a committed niche audience (including myself!) But if Saros doesn’t get a PC port, it likely won’t break even. Sony will eventually claw back revenue and value through PS Store discounts and an inevitable PS Plus stint. But if revenue was the priority here, this banger of a game hasn’t succeeded. The Steam-port question hangs over Saros, with a lot at stake given recent studio closures. Marathon has now sold 347K on PS5, with around 75K of those arriving after the free week timed to the Season 2 launch. That’s a decent sign, but the not enough the move the needle. Of those who played Marathon on PS5 this month, almost 12% also played Destiny 2 on PS5, no surprise given Bungie dropped Destiny 2’s final content update two days ago. We’ve got a bigger Bungie/Marathon/Destiny piece coming next week, so subscribe to the newsletter (link in bio) to get that ASAP. God of War Sons of Sparta has sold 132K copies (almost $4M). A tidy result for a shadow-dropped Metroidvania spin-off that mostly underwhelmed critics but has earned a small band of defenders. Most Sons of Sparta players have, predictably, played 2018’s God of War and Ragnarok, but the PS5 hardcore showed up here in a telling way. About 15% of Sons of Sparta players have also played Saros, more than have played Silksong (13%) or Animal Well (9%). In other words, this converted PlayStation and God of War fans more than Metroidvania fans. More on the free Substack. Link in bio.

State of Play returns on June 2. The over hour-long show includes an extended look at Marvel’s Wolverine, plus news and updates on upcoming PS5 games: bit.ly/3PBh16z