Sony's best-selling PlayStation games this year are mostly ones it never brought to PC

[Daniel Sims]

Connecting the dots: Reports that Sony will stop releasing some of its first-party games on PC claim that the company aims to identify these titles more closely with PlayStation consoles. Recent sales data might bear this out, as back-catalog games buoyed Sony's in-house sales revenue over the first half of this year.

According to estimates from Alinea Analytics, games that launched in 2025 or earlier that have not received PC ports have dominated first-party PlayStation game sales so far in 2026. The numbers suggest that keeping these titles exclusive to PlayStation 5 increased their sales on that console, allowing Sony to keep more revenue to itself.

Among the five highest-earning Sony-published games on PlayStation 5 released since 2023, all but one – Saros – are back-catalogue titles. Furthermore, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which generated an estimated $32.9 million, is the only game also available on PC.

Unsurprisingly, Ghost of Yotei is the top performer, having earned approximately $77.6 million since its release last October. Meanwhile, Saros, the only 2026 release to chart, has brought in about $30.5 million after only two months on store shelves.

Expanding the analysis to nearly 200 games further indicates that releases from several years ago still contribute significantly to Sony's bottom line, possibly encouraging the company to keep future titles on PlayStation. While games released in 2025, such as Yotei, accounted for approximately 14.8% of copies sold, 23.3% were from before 2020. Additionally, Gran Turismo 7, which launched in 2022, is Sony's number-two first-party seller so far in 2026.

Such numbers might have convinced Sony to withhold some titles from PC so players would purchase them on PlayStation 5 instead of waiting for PC ports and giving at least 20% of their sales revenue to Valve (or GOG or Epic). Sony Interactive Entertainment Studio Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst reportedly outlined the company's new strategy several weeks ago: multiplayer games such as the megahit Helldivers 2 would continue coming to multiple platforms, but narrative-driven single-player titles would be exclusive to PlayStation.

Reports cite multiple factors, including insufficient PC sales and potential harm to Sony's hardware sales. While it remains unclear whether exclusives such as Saros, Ghost of Yotei, Astro Bot, MLB The Show, Marvel's Wolverine, and God of War Laufey will sell PlayStation 5 consoles in significant numbers, selling these titles to PS5 owners for years to come might be more valuable to Sony than giving players another reason to wait for PC ports.

Permalink to story:

Sony's best-selling PlayStation games this year are mostly ones it never brought to PC

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Correlation is not causation. Limiting the number of people who can buy a game doesn't make it sell more.

Also those revenue numbers are rough compared to how expensive those studios are.

 

[m4a4]

The numbers behind Sony's decision to keep more games off PC are starting to make sense

No they don't. Not when they could sell far more copies to a much bigger audience, instead of limiting sales to 1 platform...

 

[bviktor]

No they don't. Not when they could sell far more copies to a much bigger audience, instead of limiting sales to 1 platform...

Console maker vs game developer.

 

[bviktor]

Oh it's almost as if the obvious was actually true, shocking revelations indeed.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Console maker vs game developer.

Limiting a games sales to 1 platform does not increase sales.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I don't understand how we got that headline from that data.

Why not "Sony's doesn't bring its best selling games to PC, blames PC for poor game sales".

That works just as well.

 

[Tom Yum]

Limiting a games sales to 1 platform does not increase sales.

You are thinking sales = number of copies of the game sold. Sony sees sales as revenue ($ made). Sony makes more money off a game sold on PS5 than PC because they keep a larger cut of the sale, so they can sell less units while making more revenue. Exclusivity also increases PS5 hardware sales which while cost neutral at best, increases PSN subscription sales which is a big money maker. Lastly, game prices on PS5 are normally more stable and less subject to deep discounting like on PC, so Sony can generally keep game prices higher for exclusives than PC ports, further increasing revenue (sales).

 

[LordVile95]

You’re comparing the 2026 sales of a game released in 2025 vs one in 2023

 

[Antias]

It's like a self fulfilling prophecy...
/s

 

[m4a4]

You are thinking sales = number of copies of the game sold. Sony sees sales as revenue ($ made). Sony makes more money off a game sold on PS5 than PC because they keep a larger cut of the sale, so they can sell less units while making more revenue. Exclusivity also increases PS5 hardware sales which while cost neutral at best, increases PSN subscription sales which is a big money maker. Lastly, game prices on PS5 are normally more stable and less subject to deep discounting like on PC, so Sony can generally keep game prices higher for exclusives than PC ports, further increasing revenue (sales).

And you're missing one big, giant point; PC is a bigger platform than PlayStation. Meaning they won't actually "make more money" selling on their smaller platform than if they had more sales (aka revenue). Including what they might make from locking users in their closed ecosystem.

Sure, they'll only get 70-80% of the profit selling the game on PC, but the additional volume will more than make up for it considering it's "free money" (porting a game is way cheaper than developing a new game from scratch). Well, assuming they actually make a game that can compete outside of their artificial walled garden.
Capcom doubling down on PC shows that if you respect PC, we'll happily buy your games.

PS. a lot of PC gamers are never going to get a console or, if they do, buy more than a few games for them to make up for the hardware subsidy (as in, there isn't enough overlap to dismiss the market). So it's just bad business sense to ignore millions of additional PC sales in this digital age.

 

[Rapob]

Consoles should keep exclusives close, just look at Nintendo.
Good exclusives is what makes people buy a console in the first place.

Xbox failed massively due to bringing all games to PC. Xbox is pretty much dead now. Microsoft cares more about Game Pass subs, so I don't think they care much.

Next "Xbox" - Project Helix - Is just a PC running Windows pretty much.
Xbox hardware will probably be outsourced to 3rd party going forward.
Look at Asus "Xbox" handheld.

 

[dangh]

If this approach means they will have more time to deliver many great titles they did on ps 1/2/3, I'm ok with that. It works great for Nintendo - high quality, exclusive games sells well and deliver what users wants. For ps5 I got Ghost of Yotei which I'm happy with, but other than that it is pure disappointment. I play mostly on PC, but really, I don't care, I want good games and I see no reason for studios bothering with multiple platforms.

On the other hand, if they wont deliver on those premises, I will skip ps6.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Consoles should keep exclusives close, just look at Nintendo.
Good exclusives is what makes people buy a console in the first place.

Xbox failed massively due to bringing all games to PC. Xbox is pretty much dead now. Microsoft cares more about Game Pass subs, so I don't think they care much.

Next "Xbox" - Project Helix - Is just a PC running Windows pretty much.
Xbox hardware will probably be outsourced to 3rd party going forward.
Look at Asus "Xbox" handheld.

-Xbox has a couple issues. Xbox everywhere was one of them.

Gamepass was another one, where the math doesn't math on a monthly cancel any time sub for $20 vs multiple $60 games. Basically attracted all the folks that buy multiple new games a year and reduced the revenue from them while also adding a bunch of server overhead.

Gamepass also incentivized "content slop" where getting games out in a functional manner was more important than whether or not the game was actually any good. Obsidian's Avowed and Outer Worlds were perfect examples: well made pretty snoozefests.

Lastly Xbox doesn't really have any killer franchises left. Halo has been a string of disappointing releases, it's been 7 years since a Gears of War mainline game released, and then... .... .... Was there anything else?

I'd love to run the Xbox division, I'd **** it up for half of what they've been paying the other guys.

 

[starfalls]

Didnt they just sell old PS4-5 games to PC users? What do they/you expect? Huge numbers from old buggy ports? I also waited 1-2 years till I got the last of us. It was a lag fest every 5 months, till they finallly fixed it.
Also, all of their console sales are low, and they were JUST from the console. The games came to PC much later.

 

[Rapob]

-Xbox has a couple issues. Xbox everywhere was one of them.

Gamepass was another one, where the math doesn't math on a monthly cancel any time sub for $20 vs multiple $60 games. Basically attracted all the folks that buy multiple new games a year and reduced the revenue from them while also adding a bunch of server overhead.

Gamepass also incentivized "content slop" where getting games out in a functional manner was more important than whether or not the game was actually any good. Obsidian's Avowed and Outer Worlds were perfect examples: well made pretty snoozefests.

Lastly Xbox doesn't really have any killer franchises left. Halo has been a string of disappointing releases, it's been 7 years since a Gears of War mainline game released, and then... .... .... Was there anything else?

I'd love to run the Xbox division, I'd **** it up for half of what they've been paying the other guys.

Xbox have Forza. Avowed and Outer Worlds did pretty well so I don't understand what you try to say here. My guess is that you did not play those games. They are not 10/10 games, very few games are, but they did fairly well, around 7.5/10 on average when looking at overall review scores.

Fable is coming "soon". Huge "Xbox" franchise and TES 6 within a few years.

Sony did not have many exclusives either. PS5 is one of the worst PS generations.

Both PS5 and XSX/XSS relied massively on 3rd party, multi platform games this generation.

It is obvious that Microsoft cares more about Windows gaming and Game Pass subs, that Xbox console sales/marketshare - They barely make them anymore.

Nintendo avoids all these problems by not releasing anything outside of Switch 1/2. That is why Switch is selling well. A console/handheld should have actual exclusives to get people interested. That is also the reason why Steam Deck sales are very poor in comparison, just a weak low-end PC in disguise, for playing PC games (very few PC games actually work and run well on it too)