Sony starts new fiscal year by taking over Xbox store, PlayStation has more games on best-sellers list than Microsoft

Just a bit ago we published a report that Xbox has more games on the PlayStation Store's pre-order charts than Sony does. Now we've found an inverse relation, with Sony having more games than Microsoft does on the Xbox's top-sellers charts in the US.

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The relationship between Sony and Microsoft is rather interesting. Seen as fierce rivals, especially during the FTC v Microsoft case in 2023, the two are also close bedfellows when it comes to big billion-dollar games like Minecraft, and after the merger, Call of Duty. While Xbox and PlayStation are competitor-rivals, they also maintain a symbiotic relationship, and this bond has only grown now that Microsoft has broken content exclusivity for good and all.

The dynamics of each company are likewise interesting. Sony is following Microsoft's lead to an extent, bringing multiple first-party funded and/or published games to Xbox, but only in the context of live service games like Marathon and Helldivers 2 (both of which appear on the Xbox list) as well as sports games like MLB The Show (this also pops up).

Today marks the beginning of Sony's Fiscal Year 2026 timeline, and the group is kicking off the new period in style by taking over Xbox's paid storefront.

While Sony didn't have a #1 best-seller--that spot belonged to Crimson Desert, signalling mighty sales for the game--the group had more games on Xbox's top 25 paid games list than Microsoft did, which shows that Sony's own plan to counteractively monetize the Xbox user base appears to be working.

And Sony did have the #2 spot with MLB The Show 26, a full-priced $70 game. The $100 deluxe edition of The Show 26 also pops up in the 15th spot.

We collected the top 25 paid games on Xbox and put them into a list, color-coding the entries for better visuals. Here are the results, based on today's standings on the Xbox store accessed via Xbox Series X in the United States.

Note: These standings can change and fluctuate daily, so it's possible that the trends and placements will not last.

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What's interesting is the games that didn't show up on this list. Titles like Call of Duty are noticeably absent, indicating that Microsoft may not have lost these users, but converted them from buyers into Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

Call of Duty is believed to be a big reason why Xbox Game Pass reached nearly $5 billion revenue in 2024.