I’ve been covering PlayStation since the early days of the PS3, and aside from the PSN outage in 2011, I can’t imagine a worse month for the brand than September 2026.
The PS5’s public image was at stake, with the ramifications of a widely publicized “blackout” campaign underway, the cancellation of Physint (and its subsequent adoption by Xbox), a poorly received product. State of playand lower-than-expected reviews for Marvel’s Wolverine.
All of this prompted our friends at IGN to write a scathing article: the future of PlayStation has never been so bleak.
Despite all this, the PS5 was the only console to see its US sales increase in September, beating the much newer (and cheaper) Switch 2 in units, and holding its best share of overall industry dollar sales since May 2025.
PS5 sales jumped 22% year-over-year in units.
I went back to check if September 2025 was a bad month, making this feat less successful. No, it enjoyed a 10% month-over-month increase compared to August 2025, thanks to the release of Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei.
This was all driven by unprecedented price increases, meaning that in terms of dollar sales, Sony’s console was up 43% year-over-year with an average selling price of $646.
All of this begs the question: How big is enthusiast outrage?
We already know, thanks to Circana’s Mat Piscatella, that the aforementioned “blackout” campaign – in which PS5 owners were encouraged to unplug their consoles indefinitely – brought “no significant change” to US gamer numbers.
This is despite the protest being widely publicized by major industry publications like IGN.
In a Push square poll, 45% of our enthusiastic fans said they would participate in the blackout. But in a follow-up survey, 66% said they used their console normally throughout the protest.
A study by Cyabra found that almost half of the negative sentiments directed at Sony’s official social media channels regarding the “No Disc No Buy” movement came from fake accounts.
Meanwhile, Xbox’s decision to save Physint was seen as a game-changing moment for Microsoft. This, in tandem with its disc-to-digital program – which was rolled out to Xbox Insiders throughout September – was supposed to give the PS5 a bloody nose.
But according to Circana data, Xbox sales were down 27% year-over-year and had their worst September on record. “The previous record was set a year ago,” according to Piscatella.
The impending release of GTA 6 is obviously driving a lot of the positive momentum behind the PS5 right now, and while it’s not an exclusive, Sony’s marketing would like you to believe it.
According to Rockstar, the game “plays best on PS5.”
All trailers and gameplay footage released so far have been captured on Sony’s console, and by all accounts, pre-orders are heavily skewed in favor of PlayStation. (Though Xbox’s Matthew Ball says it’s not disproportionate to market share.)
But Piscatella doesn’t believe the rise in PS5 sales versus enthusiast sentiment is entirely attributable to Rockstar’s open world.
Writing on Blue Sky, he argued that weekly sales data indicated that Marvel’s Wolverine was the “main driver of the PS5 increase in September, with NBA 2K27 and GTA 6 likely playing a role.”
Speaking of which, the reception to Insomniac’s superhero effort – a solid but entirely unspectacular 75 on Metacritic – was one of the reasons for the poor consumer sentiment around the PS5 in September. Its embargo was lifted just hours after Physint’s news broke.
But in a busy schedule, it’s the best-selling game of the month, surpassing multi-format titles like NBA 2K27 and EA Sports FC 27.
It’s difficult to know exactly what Sony’s expectations were for the title and whether it will have the longevity to meet them. Consumer reaction to this release was more positive than that of critics, however, so it may still have success.
Still, already rising to the 11th best-selling game of the year, in a climate that has completely gutted the release for its “fart trails,” once again suggests that all the noise is happening online. This is Sony’s biggest new first-party release since Helldivers 2 in 2024, beating out even Ghost of Yotei.
Piscatella summed it up perfectly on social media: “There is the current video game market and the video game market as it is discussed on enthusiast forums and on social media. They are two very different things.”
That’s not to say that negative sentiment doesn’t exist – it does, and Sony would do well not to ignore it.
Reports of an Ape Escape revival and a strong first-party lineup for 2027 – starting with Until Dawn 2 and God of War Laufey – are already helping to boost morale.
But with next-gen hardware prices rumored to cost over $1,000, the PS6 is facing tough times, regardless of the data presented in this article.
I think it’s clear that the negative reaction to PlayStation right now is completely overblown; the numbers paint a completely different picture.
But the Japanese giant should accept returns: its reason for being is to provide entertainment to its fans. Some of his recent decisions have stood in the way of this, and while they clearly don’t show up on the record yet, some changes would be appreciated before they do.
Gn tech
