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The story
With 2026 down to its final three months and the year-end sales rush setting in, a thread titled “The Sense of Stagnation Hanging Over PlayStation” went up on 5ch’s hardware/industry (Geha) board. Posters noted that confirmed PS5 titles for next year are limited to just a handful — Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the Monster Hunter Wilds expansion, Kingdom Hearts IV — and that even the first-party lineup is dominated by titles already flagged as struggling, like Marathon and Saros. As for GTA6, billed as this year’s biggest showcase title, posters also raised concerns about the PS5 Pro’s supply shortage and the mismatch in timing with Sony’s plans to eventually phase out physical media, with opinions split on whether GTA6’s sales momentum will eventually fade.
What people said
Nintendo is hoping for a strong start with "The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary," releasing the Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive title "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" on November 5.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is marking Xbox's 25th anniversary with plans for an Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition and a matching controller.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HTgc80ibAAAxJLL.jpg
Oh wait — it's because everything up to now has been so-so, and we're down to pinning all our hopes on GTA6.
Spending hundreds of billions of yen to keep churning out unsellable "poli-cor" (politically-correct-driven) games — that's basically running a charity.
More than charity, isn't it basically funding whatever agenda is pushing "poli-cor" even further?
Sony bears heavy responsibility for letting the PS5 Pro run short on supply at such a critical moment.
I think GTA itself will sell like crazy, but
that's really about the gameplay being good — it's not the kind of game people are desperate to get their hands on right away for the story or anything.
Since they probably won't make a new entry for another 10 years anyway,
I feel like a lot of people are fine just waiting for a PC port, or for it to go cheap, free, or show up as a freebie.
Rather than waste money on that thing, saving up for a PS6 is the smarter move.
Are PlayStation fans just trying to screw each other over at this point?
No need to cling to PS.
Even if it costs a bit more, going with a PC is far better.
Damn, that's rough…
It's turned into a clearance-cart parking lot lmao🤣
No customers are coming at all, so it's basically just become a cart-storage spot 😭
Though honestly the display looks flashy and nice —
kids would probably love going to check it out.
Everyone knows physical discs are getting phased out eventually.
Forget timing — GTA was being used to put out the fire over discs going away.
Didn't exactly put the fire out, though.
Persona 4 Reload (100k)
FF7 Revelation (250k)
Wilds Master Edition: Ascendance (150k)
Resident Evil Code: Veronica (200k)
KH4 (200k)
…is that about it?
Might actually turn out better than this year, who knows.
All of those are multiplatform with Switch 2 too lol
Even when titles come out, they're not hitting the expected numbers, so sales keep sliding.
Out of those, FF7's 250k and Monster Hunter's 150k look especially shaky —
it's obvious a chunk of those sales will get siphoned off by Switch 2.
Resident Evil probably won't sell as well as RE9 either.
Revelation at 250k is only 70% of Rebirth's numbers — will it really sell that much?
Well, that'll probably only do about 100k too.
That one you can just play on Game Pass anyway —
only 1,550 yen a month.
Still, surely it'll outsell the Switch version at least.
Sure, it'll sell, no doubt about that.
The real test comes after physical media gets phased out, though.
That's already happening.
apparently if PS fanboys can't do this, they lose their minds.
It's not buy → play → keep it on the shelf, is it.
The disc is just there so you can play it launch week, flip it right away, and end up paying maybe 2,000 yen out of pocket.
A paper voucher (download code card) that expires in May isn't going to keep selling forever.
There are even stories of stores cutting off pre-orders two months before the order deadline — if stores aren't stocking it, it'll only sell in that opening burst.
Probably around 100k in the first week, a sharp drop through November, and gone from the top 30 by December.
Because they were all garbage.
Still to come: "Space Baldy" (derisive nickname), BBA20, Horizon Online (being reworked), Fairgame (renamed and being redone).
Anyone who bought a PS5 is allowed to cry.
Honestly it's weird that anyone buys a PS expecting first-party titles to carry it.
Up through the PS4 era, I don't think hardly anyone bought in for the first-party lineup.
If GTA6 flops, that's the moment PlayStation is finished.
Honestly, PlayStation's pipeline after GTA is basically empty anyway,
so either way GTA is the last fireworks show — assuming it isn't a dud.
Surely it won't blow past 300GB right out of the gate.
Background and Key Points of Debate
Since 2024, Sony itself has stated it’s moving toward a future without physical media on PS5, and the thread repeatedly pointed out that GTA6’s release timing clashes with that stated direction. It’s also worth noting that the sales estimates floated for titles like FF7 Revelation and the Monster Hunter Wilds expansion are just personal guesses extrapolated from previous entries, not official figures. Where opinion in the thread split was over whether GTA6 can actually drive the platform forward, and how seriously to take the slump in first-party titles. Posters even disagreed on the underlying premise — unlike the PS4 era, how large is the audience that actually buys a PlayStation for its first-party lineup in the first place? That disagreement points to a broader difficulty: you can’t gauge the real state of the market just by counting how many new releases are coming.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, Geha board) thread “2026: The Sense of Stagnation Hanging Over PlayStation.”
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