Sony to increase first party games output as PS5 sales continue to fall

As Sony projects a decline in PlayStation 5 console sales over the next year, the company is hoping software will pick up the slack.

Sony’s first-party line-up for the PlayStation 5 has been an increasing disappointment over the past five years, with standouts like Returnal and Astro Bot, but too few new releases and too many remasters and failed live service experiments.

The lack of first-party games is reflected in the company’s financial report for the 2024 fiscal year (ending March 31, 2025). As outlined by Sony, first-party software sales dropped to 28.9 million in FY24, a 10.8 million decline from 2023’s 39.7 million.

While overall game sales were up over last year, at 303.3 million, Sony is expecting an increase in both first and third-party software sales over the 2025 financial year – which seems to indicate it has some surprises up its sleeve.

Sony is set to release Ghost of Yōtei and Death Stranding 2: On The Beach in 2025, and according to Sony’s definition of the term, the latter does count as first party even though it’s not made by one of their internal studios.

There are also projects like Bungie’s Marathon and the Sony-published Lost Soul Aside, which are both slated for this year and also come under the definition of first party.

While Sony will likely increase its first-party sales with these games alone, there’s a chance another unannounced project might be lined up for 2025. Earlier this year, rumours claimed a new God Of War game set in Greece is planned for 2025, but nothing has been officially announced yet.

It’s also perfectly possible that other, current unguessed at, titles could be waiting in the wings.

Despite these positive forecasts for software sales, Sony is less optimistic when it comes to hardware. The company is expecting PlayStation 5 sales to drop in the 2025 financial year, which isn’t exactly surprising as we’re over five years into the console’s life cycle (and the next 12 months no longer has GTA 6 as a potential boost).

Over the 2024 fiscal year, PlayStation 5 hardware sales totalled 18.5 million, selling 2.8 million in the last quarter. This is a small drop from the previous year’s 20.8 million.

This means total PlayStation 5 sales have hit 77.8 million, which is just 1.4 million units behind the PlayStation 4 at the same period in its life. However, whether that means it’ll end up with a similar lifetime total, of around 117 million (making it the fifth most successful console of all time), is hard to guess.

We’ll likely have a better idea of Sony’s upcoming software slate over the next month, if not through a State Of Play presentation, then at Summer Game Fest on June 6, 2025.

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