Summary
Unlike the Xbox and Switch,PlayStation’s top 10 games ranked by average monthly active users (MAU) don’t contain any first-party titles. Most of the slots onPlayStation, as well as on other platforms, are taken up by industry titans likeFortnite,Grand Theft Auto 5, andModern Warfare 3.
PlayStation is known for its excellentfirst-party games thanks to the impressive lineup of developers that fall under Sony’s PlayStation Studios umbrella. These include Naughty Dog and itsUnchartedandThe Last of Usgames, Santa Monica Studio andGod of War, Insomniac Games andSpider-Man, and more. While these titles command plenty of respect and usually sell well enough, a new report reveals that none of them cracked the rankings for PlayStation’s most-played games.
Market researcher Newzoorecently released its newest report on the game industry. The report revealed that Xbox’sMinecraftandStarfieldand Nintendo’sThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom,Super Mario Bros. Wonder,Mario Kart 8,Pokemon Scarlet/Violet,Animal Crossing: New Horizons, andSuper Smash Bros. Ultimatewere all included in the top 10 by MAU over the course of 2023 for their respective platforms, while PlayStation’s rankings were solely made up of third-party titles.
PlayStation’s Most-Played Games of 2023 By Average Monthly Active Users
This might not come as a huge surprise to PlayStation fans, as the highest-played games on most platforms are often made up of multiplayer titles. However, recent releases like 2022’sGod of War: Ragnarokand 2023’sSpider-Man 2failing to crack the list might still come as a disappointment. While single-player games often experience a sharp decline in player numbers after a month or two, Santa Monica Studio tried to boostRagnarok’s lifespan byimplementing an impressive roguelike modepost-launch, and while it was well received, it seems to not have been enough to makeRagnarokone of the PS5’s most-played games of 2023.
PlayStation’s most-played titles, as well as the same rankings for Xbox and PC, highlight the overall gaming community’s love for establishedlive-service titles likeFortnite,Rocket League, andRoblox. The Nintendo Switch is the only outlier, with its 2023 MAU rankings mostly made up of first-party titles. Interestingly, Newzoo reported that 60% of playtime in 2023 was spent in games six years or older, with five of these older titles accounting for 27% of all playtime.
It seems that Sony is not dissuaded by its first-party games not retaining massive numbers of monthly users, with development onfuture PlayStation titleslike Kojima’sDeath Stranding 2still going ahead. Although these games don’t compete with other franchises in terms of MAU, their $70 price tags and large sales numbers still seem to generate enough revenue for Sony.
Sony PlayStation 5
The Sony PlayStation 5 console is one of the most popular gaming machines currently with a fast SSD, a custom AMD APU, and 16GB of GDDR6 console memory, making it one of the best options on the market. It also happens to have a surprising number of console exclusives and currently trades at a discount at multiple retailers nationwide.
