PlayStation made more from cross-platform games than it did from physical game sales in Q1'25

Sony's latest Q1'25 financials offer an interesting update on the PlayStation business, showing that the cross-platform initiative is helping a new games segment beat physical game sales.

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Inside PlayStation's walls, physical game sales revenues have been outstripped by a relatively new classification: Other Software, which includes first-party game sales/microtransactions made on non-PlayStation hardware. Essentially, what we are seeing is that on the PlayStation platform, physical software is now being more heavily stressed by the combined effect of digital sales made both on PC and PS5. This skew towards digital saw holiday 2024 physical game revenue drop to just $291 million, a low point for this kind of period.

In Q1'25, which included Death Stranding 2's launch, PlayStation made $157 million from physical game sales, compared to $175 million from Other Software. This discrepancy makes sense considering that PC is almost fully digital at this point, but it's worth considering that Other Software technically includes the Lego Horizon Adventures game that PlayStation Studios published on the Nintendo Switch.

• Read more: PlayStation now cares more about MAUs than console sales

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Other Software includes the full catalog of PlayStation Studios and PlayStation Publishing games on Steam, which includes 23 titles.

Here's how Sony defines Other Software segment:

Other Software is revenue from sales of first-party titles and other titles published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, including add-on content, on platforms other than PlayStation® consoles.

The news comes at an interesting time when Sony management says that PlayStation is moving away from a hardware-oriented business and is now focusing more on community and engagement.

This move at this specific time isn't atypical for the console industry, especially given PlayStation sales trends; the PS4 peaked shortly after the PS4 Pro released, and Sony has carried out a similar plan with the PS5, which recently achieved 80.3 million sales (compared to the PS4's 82.4 million in a similar timeframe.

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To continue this multiplatform initiative, developer Arrowhead has announced plans to release Helldivers 2 on Xbox, where it will join other PlayStation-published live service games like Destiny 2, MLB The Show, and eventually Marathon.