And it’s about to get worse, as price hikes and the lack of exclusives this year are only going to drag things down even further…

Sony has released its quarterly earnings report, and there isn’t much good news when it comes to PlayStation. As of March 31, 77.8 million PlayStation 5 units had been shipped worldwide. That’s not bad over four and a half years, but in the first three months of 2025, only 2.8 million units were shipped. “Only” is the keyword here, because last year the same period saw 4.5 million. A drop of 1.7 million is a big red flag mid-generation — something we’d expect more toward the end of a console lifecycle.

PlayStation Network recorded 124 million monthly active users. That’s actually a positive, up from 118 million in Q1 2024, a gain of 6 million. However, Sony has not disclosed PlayStation Plus subscriber numbers for a long time, presumably because the transition to the three-tier model led to a significant drop, and the company chose to keep those numbers hidden — just like Microsoft no longer shares Xbox hardware sales.

In the first quarter of 2025, 76.1 million PS5 and PS4 games were sold. In the same period last year, 72.6 million copies were sold, so that’s a 3.5 million increase. But for first-party titles, the situation looks grim: only 5.9 million were from internal studios, compared to 12.3 million a year ago. The digital sales ratio rose to 80%, up from 77% in 2024 — another strong shift toward an all-digital future.

So Sony really needs to step it up. Without major exclusives, console sales won’t hold up, and this quarterly report is clear evidence. Sure, Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2: On The Beach are on the way, but maybe Marvel’s Wolverine could still squeeze into this year’s lineup. Just saying.

Source: Gematsu, Sony