I’ve been covering PlayStation since the early PS3 days, and aside from the PSN outage in 2011, I can’t think of a worse month for the brand than September 2026.
PS5’s public image was on the floor, with the ramifications of a widely publicised “blackout” campaign ongoing, the cancellation of Physint (and its subsequent adoption by Xbox), a poorly received State of Play, and lower than expected reviews for Marvel’s Wolverine.
It all prompted our friends at IGN to write a scathing article: PlayStation’s future has never looked bleaker.
Despite all of this, PS5 was the only console to see its US sales increase in September, beating the much newer (and cheaper) Switch 2 in units, and commanding 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 whether September 2025 was a poor month, making this less of an achievement. No, it enjoyed a 10% month-on-month lift compared to August 2025, powered by the release of Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Yotei.
This is all on the back of unprecedented price increases, which mean in terms of dollar sales, Sony’s console was up an eye-watering 43% year-over-year with an average selling price of $646.
It all begs the question: just how much does the enthusiast outrage even matter?
We already know courtesy of Circana’s Mat Piscatella that the aforementioned “blackout” campaign – in which PS5 owners were encouraged to unplug their consoles indefinitely – made “no significant change” to US player counts.
This is despite the protest being widely publicised by major industry publications like IGN.
In a Push Square poll, 45% of our enthusiast fanbase said they would be participating in the blackout. But in a follow-up survey, 66% said they used their console as normal throughout the protest.
A study by Cyabra found that almost half of the negative sentiment aimed at Sony’s official social media channels relating to the ‘No Disc No Buy’ movement came from fake accounts.
Meanwhile, Xbox’s decision to rescue Physint was seen as a momentum changing moment for Microsoft. This, in tandem with its disc-to-digital programme – which rolled out to Xbox Insiders throughout September – was supposed to give PS5 a bloody nose.
But according to Circana data, Xbox sales declined 27% year-over-year, and endured their worst September on record. “The previous record was set a year ago,” according to Piscatella.
GTA 6’s impending release is obviously powering 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 is.
According to Rockstar, the game ‘Plays Best on PS5’.
All of the trailers and gameplay footage released thus far have been captured on Sony’s console, and by all accounts pre-orders are heavily skewed in PlayStation’s favour. (Although Xbox’s Matthew Ball claims this isn’t disproportionate to market share.)
But Piscatella doesn’t believe that the uplift in PS5 sales against enthusiast sentiment is all attributable to Rockstar’s open world
Writing on Blue Sky, he argued that weekly sales data pointed to Marvel’s Wolverine being the “primary driver of the PS5 increase in September, with both NBA 2K27 and GTA 6 likely playing roles”.
Speaking of which, the reception to Insomniac’s superhero effort – a sturdy if entirely unspectacular 75 on Metacritic – was among the reasons for the poor consumer sentiment around the PS5 in September. Its embargo lifted just hours after the Physint news broke.
But in a crowded schedule it was the best-selling game of the month, outpacing multiformat titles like NBA 2K27 and EA Sports FC 27.
It’s difficult to know exactly what Sony’s expectations for the title were, and whether it’ll have the longevity to meet them. The consumer response to the release has been more positive than that of critics, however, so it could yet have legs.
Nevertheless, rocketing to the 11th best-selling game of the year already, in a climate that utterly eviscerated the release for its “fart trails”, suggests yet again that the noise is all occurring online. It’s the biggest new first-party release since Helldivers 2 in 2024, beating even Ghost of Yotei.
Piscatella summed it up best on social media: “There’s the actual video game market, and the video game market as discussed on enthusiast forums and social media. These are two very different things.”
That isn’t to say that the 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 2028 – beginning with Until Dawn 2 and God of War Laufey – are already helping to lift the mood.
But with prices of next-gen hardware rumoured to cost over $1,000+, there are tough times ahead of the PS6, regardless of what the data in this article presents.
I think it’s clear the negative reaction to PlayStation right now is completely overblown; the data paints a completely different picture.
But the Japanese giant would do well to heed the feedback: its raison d’être is to provide entertainment for its fans. Some of its recent decisions have been obstructing that, and while they’re clearly not showing on the balance sheet just yet, some changes would be appreciated before they do.
