Helldivers 2 is Sony’s fastest-selling game ever but PS5 sales are falling-Kenneth Andersen-Entertainment – Metro

12 million soldiers fighting to democratise space (Picture: Sony)

‘There are more Helldivers than there are Swedes,’ says Helldivers 2 CEO, but its success is due to the PC and not so much the PS5.

Since third person shooter Helldivers 2 came out in early February, it’s been topping charts and stealing gamers’ hearts, and despite Sony’s best attempts to sabotage its success on PC, it’s become one of its most successful games ever.

However, while it’s been successful on PlayStation 5, it’s the PC version, which launched the same day, that is the driving force behind the game’s popularity, with frequently more than 100,000 concurrent players per day on Steam.

As such, Sony has confirmed that it is their fastest-selling first party game ever, with 12 million copies sold in 12 weeks, across both formats. Up until now, 2022’s God Of War Ragnarök (not, as you might expect, Spider-Man 2) was the fastest-selling Sony exclusive, with 11 million sales in 12 weeks.

According to Sony, the PlayStation 5 has now sold 59.3 units worldwide. Microsoft long ago stopped revealing Xbox sales figures, but the Xbox Series X/S, which launched at almost exactly the same time, is believed to be on around 28 million consoles sold.

Sony has revealed they sold 20.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles over the past 12 months, and 4.5 million in the last quarter, bringingtotal sales to 59.2 million units.

The good news for Sony is that’s almost exactly the same as the PlayStation 4, at the same point in its life cycle, and also just very slightly short of their original goal for the year.

What’s surprising though, considering the console hasn’t even reached its fourth Christmas – and the slow start to the generation due to the pandemic – is that sales are down 29% on last year.

As a result Sony is predicting that it will sell even fewer PlayStation 5 consoles in the next 12 months, with a target of just 18 million.

Typically a console peaks in its third or fourth year and to see such a sharp decline is unusual for such an otherwise popular format.

The fact that Sony correctly predicted it though, further explains their odd behaviour of the last two years and their pivot towards live service games (not that there’s been any update on that recently).

With console sales proving so ephemeral the success of Helldivers 2 is likely to encourage Sony to release more games day one on PC, especially live service titles.

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Arrowhead Studios’ CEO and creative director of Helldivers 2 Johan Pilestedt was understandably pleased at the game’s performance.

‘As announced in the Sony earnings call, we have sold over 12 million units! It’s crazy to think that there are more Helldivers than there are Swedes,’ he said – Arrowhead being, as you might have guessed, Swedish themselves. Sweden has a population of around 10.5 million people.

Sony’s earning call states that Helldivers 2 ‘has been a hit that far exceeded expectations’, and, ‘The game has become our biggest PC hit title to date, and as a multi-platform title, it also contributed significantly to sales and profit last quarter,’ the speech transcript says.

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