During the PS4 generation, PlayStation knocked it out of the park with its first-party lineup. It released hit after single-player hit, ranging from smaller titles like Concrete Genie and Tearaway Unfolded to juggernauts like the God of War 2018 reboot. PlayStation frankly left Xbox in the dust when it came to first-party releases, and with Nintendo focusing on the ill-fated Wii U for half of the 8th console gen, it’s easy to argue that Sony’s console brand triumphed over all throughout this era.
PlayStation’s single-player games were very successful on the PS4; so successful, in fact, that it started to make less of them for the PS5. Indeed, rather than double down on what made it so lucrative, PlayStation decided to do what virtually every publisher its size has done at some point: focus on live service games.
Under former CEO Jim Ryan’s reign, PlayStation did everything it possibly could to make its own Fortnite. In 2022, the company projected that it would release a whopping 12 live service games by the end of 2025. That year has come and gone, however, and most of these games are nowhere to be found.
Most of PlayStation’s Live Service Games Have Been Failures
It would be disingenuous of me to claim that PlayStation hasn’t launched any good live service games this generation, but the few that it did release have mostly been failures. Sure, while the company does have its Helldivers 2s and MLB The Shows, it has almost nothing else aside from that.
Destruction All-Stars was the first live service title that PlayStation released as part of its live service pivot, and it launched to nothing but a resounding groan. The game initially debuted on PS5 as a pay-to-play title, but it sold so poorly that PlayStation decided to add it to its PS Plus subscription service. Even then, it wasn’t able to attract many fans.
As for its other live service titles… well, they kind of don’t exist. Concord, the multiplayer FPS that looked like a weird cross between Overwatch and Guardians of the Galaxy, infamously got shut down just a few weeks after its release. Likewise, the PSVR2-exclusive Firewall Ultra debuted in 2023 with virtually no marketing, and it was delisted from the PlayStation storefront earlier this year.
Many of the other live service titles that PlayStation claimed to be working on have just been outright canceled: Naughty Dog, PlayStation’s premier single-player studio, was working on an online game set in the Last of Us universe. Insomniac, too, was making a multiplayer game as part of its Spider-Man saga. Even Bend Studio, the creators of Days Gone, were reportedly working on a live service title of some kind.
None of these games, however, have ever seen the light of day. And with upcoming PlayStation title Fairgames also reportedly undergoing development woes, it seems that this whole experiment from Sony has been nothing but a resounding failure. Recent data collected by industry insider Stephen Totilo suggests that there is indeed information to back this up.
PlayStation’s First-Party Games Have Been Experiencing a Decline in Sales
In a paywalled report published by Totilo on his website, the insider revealed that PlayStation’s first-party game sales have gradually declined in the last few fiscal years. Though the company experienced a peak in software sales during fiscal year 2020 (coincidentally, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic), it has largely been on a downward trend ever since… with one notable exception, fiscal year 2025. This year, it’s worth noting, is the same year that Ghost of Yotei released.
Ghost of Yotei seems, by all accounts and purposes, to have been a massive success for PlayStation. Reports suggest that the game has been outpacing Ghost of Tsushima in sales, despite launching on a console with a far smaller install base. Looking at the game, it’s easy to see why it’s been so popular. Ghost of Yotei is exactly the type of title that diehard fans have wanted from PlayStation: blockbuster single-player games.
While Sony’s live service efforts have languished during this console generation, its single-player titles have largely been resounding hits. God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon: Forbidden West were critical and commercial successes, and Astro Bot managed to win Game of the Year while also selling more than a million copies.
PlayStation’s Focus on Live Service Has Harmed Its Single-Player Efforts
I’d wager that the reason why PlayStation’s first-party game sales have been declining in recent years has nothing to do with the quality of its single-player titles or their commercial performance. Rather, the company simply hasn’t released enough of them, thanks in part to its failed efforts to chase the cash cow that is live service.
Compared to the PS4 generation, PlayStation’s first-party lineup during the PS5 era has been relatively slim. The firm has been able to make do by signing various exclusivity deals with third-party companies, but its own studios have had little to offer, due to this live service initiative.
Admittedly, there are many potential reasons that one can argue have contributed to PlayStation’s drop in sales, but the lack of single-player games and, in turn, the firm’s live service efforts, seem to be the ones that makes the most sense. PlayStation has spent several years developing multiplayer games that will never come out. It’s a shame, then, that all this money it wasted didn’t go to funding the development of single-player titles instead.
