In a recent 2023 financial report, Sony revealed that the PlayStation 5 has now become its most profitable console to date. In the console’s lifetime, it has generated $106B, with over two thousand publishers and 118M monthly active users. From the console wars of the 90s to the defection of many users to PC gaming, Sony has persisted through it all. But the system has suffered from something of an identity crisis, caught between the hard-edged attitude of Xbox and the casual approach of Nintendo.
To shed some light on the subject, we’re looking at the top PlayStation 5 games by live-streaming performance that are currently available on PS5. For the purpose of this discussion, we’re looking at the all-time performance of these games, even though the PS5 itself was only released in November 2020. As such, some of these games have benefited from being on the market for longer than others.
PlayStation 5 Succeeds with Shooter Titles, with Few Kid-Friendly Games
By far the most popular genre on the PS5 are shooter games. The top 5 games available on PS5 are all shooters. GTA V sits out in front with 9.7B hours watched, though the shooting aspect of the game is massively reduced compared to the other titles (and its numbers are somewhat inflated by false tagging on streams). Fortnite then follows with 8.2B hours watched, and the other shooters on this list (Apex Legends, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Rainbow Six Siege) collectively add to 9.6B hours watched. This preference for shooters no doubt dates back to the mid-2000s when the FPS genre was one of the few that Nintendo didn’t offer, thus drawing in more “mature” gamers to Sony’s PlayStation.
Continuing this trend of mature games is Dead by Daylight, a multiplayer survival horror game that could never exist on a Nintendo console post-Gamecube. Dead by Daylight’s staying power is impressive, still holding on as the 18th most-watched game in May of 2024 despite having been released eight years ago and pulling in 1.6B hours watched on this list. No doubt the game’s popularity is buoyed by constantly updated crossovers with infamous horror IPs like Friday the 13th and Stranger Things. Sports games also get a look in with Rocket League in the top 10 with 850M and FIFA 21 sitting just outside the top 10 at #13.
Despite this focus on mature games, a couple of kid-friendly and non-Western titles do break through the pack. For kid-friendly games, Among Us and Roblox (at #12) provide multiplayer experiences that put the emphasis on social deception and social collaboration respectively. Although Among Us has the higher all-time hours watched of 1.1M, Roblox has more consistent viewership with just over 100M hours watched per year since 2020. That just leaves Genshin Impact, the only game with an anime aesthetic to crack the top 10 with 697K hours watched, no doubt thriving off its gacha system.
Given the multi-year scope of this article, live-service games have performed better in this ranking than single player, story-driven games like RPGs. Regardless, this list shows something: Live-streaming communities are built around competitive, multiplayer experiences. So far, the PS5 doesn’t have an exclusive title that fits this description. Perhaps in the coming years, the PS5 will develop a new first-party IP that fits this bill.
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