Every Single Game Featured in PS5’s ‘Special Lineup’ Promo Has Flopped

From our other sites

The story

The 5ch “Hardware & Industry” (Geha) board lit up over the fact that pretty much every game ever featured in Sony’s PS5 promotional “Special Lineup” has gone on to flop. Posters pointed to cases where Capcom and Falcom titles saw their fortunes turn around the moment they switched to multi-platform releases on the Switch 2 and got dropped from the lineup, fueling talk of a “reverse jinx” curse — get removed from the list, and suddenly you succeed. Opinions were split, though, on how to read the fact that no PS5-exclusive title has hit a million copies, and on what’s really behind the slump.

What people said

1AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:24
This is basically a Death Note at this point, lol
4AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:25
Capcom game gets a Switch 2 release → gets removed from the Special Lineup

↓

Almost all of them go on to succeed
6AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:26
Re: #4
Getting removed = guaranteed success — this jinx actually works, lmao
30AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:47
Re: #4
Hey Special Lineup team, are you watching? Just go remove everything right now and save them
36AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:50
Re: #4
Sounds like the one-shot spinoff 'Death Eraser' lol (a Death Note parody where erasing a name saves someone instead of killing them)
5AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:25
Wolverine was all over the news for hitting #1 on the store charts, and it still only did 20k.
It's so far gone they can't even cut their losses anymore.
7AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:27
Re: #5
Yeah, it's not selling worldwide either — Europe's down 60%, so it's a flop there too.
9AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:28
Low-key, Falcom quietly started doing Switch multi-platform releases, got dropped from the Special Lineup, and now their earnings are booming.

This thing is seriously cursed.
10AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:29
The curse is honestly a little too effective, it's getting scary.
12AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:30
The Monster Hunter Wilds case was hilarious beyond belief.
14AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:31
Someone go write 'Special Lineup' itself into a different Death Note.
52AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:07
Re: #14
Can't write it in without seeing its face and knowing its real name though.
15AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:31
If Capcom hadn't gone Switch 2 multi-platform and gotten removed from the Special Lineup, they might've been in serious trouble.
16AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:32
Is there seriously not a single successful game in this lineup?
17AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:32
Re: #16
Nope, seriously not one 🙄
18AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:33
Re: #16
Zero of them have hit a million copies.
19AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:34
To begin with, there isn't a single title you could call 'a PS5 success' (´・ω・`)
I don't think there's been even one in six years.
It's become a console with no flagship game to its name.
20AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:35
Even Wilds didn't break a million.
21AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:37
Square Enix and Capcom have both leaned so hard into the Switch 2 that they get bounced from the lineup now.
24AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:41
It's simply that every PS game is bombing, that's all.
29AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:47
Re: #28
Then pulling out wouldn't be a problem.
Good, good.
34AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:50
Re: #29
They can still squeeze royalties and milk the clueless through PS Plus though.
31AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:47
I remember Silent Hill: Townfall and Control: Resonant were the first ones listed.
Ace Combat 8 was next, wasn't it?
37AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:52
Since they vanish from it the moment they release, they might as well rename it the 'Discard Lineup' (a pun on 捨て去る, 'cast aside').
38AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:53
Even by Special Lineup standards, only about two games this year sold better than expected.
Everything else turned into a Death Note of disappointment.
39AnonymousOct 3, 2026 17:58
Seriously, stop cursing them already (´・ω・`)
41AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:00
To begin with, this 'bond' of theirs doesn't even have hardware behind it.
43AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:02
Re: #4
This one's the strongest case by far, lol
Truly the reverse-jinx GOAT
44AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:03
Special Lineup basically just means exclusive-to-the-losing-console, when you get down to it.
46AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:03
I mean, plenty of these titles would've sold just fine in a different era,
so at this point the list basically just proves how far PlayStation has fallen.
66AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:37
Re: #64
I narrowed it down to only the appealing PS5-exclusive titles:

【2026】
【2027】
68AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:40
Re: #66
You think that's funny? That joke bombed.
74AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:57
It's funny that Re: #64, who's the one flopping, is calling Re: #66's joke a flop.
75AnonymousOct 3, 2026 18:59
That guy didn't even put Cairn, which got great reviews, on the Special Lineup lol
Seriously, no eye for quality lol
77AnonymousOct 3, 2026 19:05
Re: #75
At the end of the day he's just a bandwagoner, so he can only pick stuff that looks famous.
78AnonymousOct 3, 2026 19:15
Re: #75
Never heard of this game, but looking it up, apparently it's coming to Switch 2 too
https://youtu.be/0b7Qqvx-mDw?si=Lnl_gt23VQjnlaCI
79AnonymousOct 3, 2026 19:35
Re: #75
If I'm being generous, maybe he only looks at titles that get physical releases…
Wait, hold on — isn't this the same guy who kept yapping about 'digital downloads,' on a PS5 that's axing discs?

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

The “Special Lineup” is a promotional campaign PlayStation runs periodically, spotlighting games it wants to push — but since many of the titles featured have gone on to post disappointing sales after release, “Death Note” and “reverse jinx” curse jokes have become a running gag on the thread. This time, posters pointed to Capcom and Falcom titles whose fortunes turned around the moment they switched to Switch 2 multi-platform releases and dropped off the lineup, which got people excited about the jinx’s "reproducibility." Opinions were split, though, on whether the slump stems from the PS5 market shrinking overall or from the individual games themselves falling short. Worth noting: no direct causal link between being featured in the lineup and poor sales has actually been demonstrated, and the sales figures cited in the thread are largely hearsay and impression rather than hard data. It’s harmless fun as a running joke, but there’s not much to back it up as fact.

※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware & Industry/Geha) thread “[Great News] Every Single Game Ever Featured in the Special Lineup Has Failed 😭“.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *