May's top PlayStation games by copies sold
A mix of evergreen titans, FC 26, and new launches 007 First Light and Lego Batman did well on PlayStation last month. Plus, our cross-platform 007 metrics.
Yesterday’s State of Play gave us an idea of where PlayStation’s heading next. But we’ve had our May estimates for a couple of days now (we always update our data daily for clients), so it’s time to look at what performed best on PlayStation last month.
We’ve got a new IP at the top, two evergreens doing their evergreen thing, FC26 smashing it ahead of the World Cup pivot, and a quiet but promising result for Lego Batman.
Let’s have a look at the state of Play…Station’s top games for May.
007 takes #001
007 First Light sold 1M copies on PS5 in May, easily making it the month’s top PS5 game by copies sold. Over 80% of those May copies were digital, which is broadly in line with where PlayStation’s digital share has settled for new releases this year.
To date, 007 First Light has sold through 2.2M copies across platforms (so no unsold retail copies in that figure). The platform split is 55.1% PS5, 33.1% Steam, and 11.8% Xbox (console, Windows, and cloud combined).
In gross revenue terms, 007 First Light has generated $150M. Owing to regional pricing and audience composition differences, the consoles make up a higher share of revenue than they do copies. Of the $150M, 60.5% came via PlayStation, 27.6% via Steam, and 12.9% via Xbox.
Part of this is because over two-thirds of 007 First Light‘s PlayStation audience is in North America (43.4%) or Western Europe (23.2%), where local currency means the game generates more revenue per player. On Steam, under half of First Light‘s audience is from those same regions (31.8% North America, 15.1% Western Europe).
As we covered in last week’s 007 Steam piece, the Steam version is pulling in higher-than-expected numbers in China, which now accounts for 17.3% of First Light‘s Steam audience. 007 is the equivalent of $44 USD in China, which is roughly 37% cheaper than the US price and about 44% cheaper than Western Europe.
The crossover data backs up what we’ve seen all year about launch-window cohorts. 11% of PS5 players who played 007 First Light in May also played Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, which launched just a few days before.
Last month was a great month for Denmark! IO Interactive is Copenhagen-based, and Lego Group is headquartered in Billund (TT Games is UK-based but produces work under Lego Group licence and direction).
Speaking of which…
A very blocky #2 and #3
Minecraft sold another 788K copies on PlayStation consoles last month. Business as usual, since Minecraft hasn’t sold fewer than 760K copies in a single month all year. With over 350M copies sold across all platforms, Minecraft is the best-selling game in history and one of the strongest brands in the world.
Every month, a new cohort of children reaches Minecraft age, which guarantees a constant volume of new sales regardless of what the broader market is up to. The demographic refresh rate is truly impressive, with the audience renewing itself faster than it’s churning.
Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight shifted 757K copies on PS5 last month, bringing its lifetime total on the platform to over 800K. Across all platforms, Legacy of the Dark Knight has now passed 1.5M sold through, so PlayStation accounts for over half of the game’s players.
The May crossover data for Legacy of the Dark Knight on PS5 is also useful. 27% of those players also played Fortnite, 16% Roblox, 16% FC 26, and 14% NBA 2K. That’s the household-and-family cohort showing up, plus the launch-window cohort of core gamers who buy practically everything.
FC 26 gets players through the door ahead of the World Cup
FC 26 sold 411K copies on PlayStation last month (90% via PS5), the fewest copies FC 26 has sold all year and down heavily from April’s 700K. Part of this dropoff is because FC 26 has been available as a PlayStation Plus monthly game since 6 May, cannibalising premium sales.
The strategic logic is straightforward for EA, which is sacrificing premium unit sales in May to build up the player base ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which kicks off on 11 June. Obviously, a bigger player pool going into the tournament means a bigger pool of potential Ultimate Team spenders during the period when football attention is at its peak.
The early returns are around what you’d expect, with 4.4M new players accessing FC 26 via PS Plus so far – a substantial new spender pool. Anecdotally, a few of my mates who were ‘’skipping FIFA and Ultimate Team this year’’, were drawn back in via PS Plus. Lo and behold, one of them is buying packs like it’s going out of fashion.
Whether this is all a smart trade for EA depends entirely on the Ultimate Team conversion rate over the next six weeks. Either way, the short-term engagement impact on the game as a whole is evident. FC 26‘s MAUs hit a record 24M on PlayStation in May, up 30% from the previous record set in April.
GTA V does what GTA V always does
Rounding out the top five is another evergreen title. Grand Theft Auto V shifted another 387K copies on PlayStation last month. No matter what else is happening in the industry, GTA V keeps pulling players in.
It’s sold another 1.8M copies on PS5 in the first half of this year alone, helping the franchise pass the 230M-sold milestone across all platforms.
I have a theory that Minecraft and GTA V are doing the same thing at different demographic levels. Both are functioning as generational gateway games that the audience ages into faster than it ages out of.
Minecraft captures kids around age 6-10, GTA V captures much of the same audience around age 12-15 (unofficially, of course). The crossover data suggests this:
40% of GTA V‘s monthly PlayStation players typically play Fortnite in any given month, while 30% play Roblox.
Household accounts aside, that’s not the original GTA V audience from 2013.
Of course, the under-12 audience would love to get their hands on GTA, too. It’s always been the way of things, and some parents are happy to oblige. Mine did too back in the day, and I turned out just fine. Right? Right!?
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