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By a wide, wide margin.
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another JRTV News. Today we're going to be touching a little bit on some sales data that has been shared, or reported on rather, in regards to PlayStation. And the reason we're going to talk about it is because the data itself is rather surprising. There are a lot of trends in the video game industry these days that are a little bit, well the more you see them, the more distasteful they sort of become. You know, hardware prices increasing due to the AI crisis, or the the demand on RAM because of the AI situation. That could be to do with the fact that Netflix are now paying Rockstar to market Rockstar's game so they can show the Grand Theft Auto gameplay on Netflix. Baffling situation. But we're also seeing a lot of ports, a lot of remakes, a lot of past experiences making a return and You could argue it's to tap into the nostalgia thing. You could say that it's, you know, instead of putting a lot of money on a unsafe bet, making an original project that people might not resonate with, you just remake something that's already tried and tested. You could say that it's lazy and it's a little bit too predictable."
"But clearly it works, and I say that because this data is, I think, some of the most alarming data I've seen in a long while in regards to the current place that the video game industry is in. But anyway, let's have a look. So yeah, July's two best-selling PlayStation games were reportedly Call of Duty projects from the early 2010s. Out of the nine best-selling games, the majority were either ports, remakes, or games that launched over a decade ago. So yeah, consumer data is the most telling piece of information we have when it comes to video games, as at the end of the day, publishers and manufacturers make decisions based on what sells and what resonates with the audience. To this end, if you thought the recent trend to produce more and more remakes and also deport older titles to current generation hardware is simply a way to tap into nostalgia, the latest data from Alenia Analytics shows it's seemingly what fans want too. The data analysis company has published a new report that looks into the best-selling games on PlayStation 4 and 5 in the month of July, and the result is a little shocking. The information claims the recent port of Call of Duty Black Ops 2, which launched originally in 2012 for reference, topped the charts and raked in 8.2 million sold copies. As a point of comparison, this would mean the almost 14-year-old game sold 250,000 less copies on PlayStation 4 and 5 in the month of July alone than Donkey Kong, Bonanza and Pokemon Pokopia have sold on Switch 2 since each debuted. Combined. To add to this is the fact Call of Duty Black Ops is the second best-selling game of July at 3 million sold units, putting it ahead of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync at 1.6 million. The equally fascinating news is of the top 9 best-selling games, the majority either originally launched 10 plus years ago, is a remake of a port or a port of an established game, or is the latest iteration of an annual sports series. The only exception to that rule is Palworld."
"which came in 8th at 479,000 copies sold and even that game isn't new as its early access journey kicked off in January 2024. You can see the full top 9 as per Alinea Analytics below. So yeah, we've got Call of Duty Black Ops 2 at 8.2 million, Black Ops 1 at 3 million, Black Flag Resynced at 1.6, EA FC 26 at 1.3, EA Sports College Football 27 at 1.1, then GTA V at 846,000. It's baffling to think that that game nearly sold a million units in July 2026 on PS4 and PS5. Who doesn't own a copy of GTA V at this point?
Like seriously, anyway. Minecraft 501,000 Power World 479,000 Halo campaign evolved coming in last at 351,000 The only one that you probably can give a little bit of leeway to in regards to these figures is Halo for the simple reason that it launched right at the end of July. So, you look at it and you think, ooh, 350,000, that's not particularly great for a new launch, especially, you know, Halo's debut on PlayStation. But, like, yeah, but Halo, you know, officially launched on July 28th, so, you know, the data is, it's probably, like, a few days, because there won't be many people that would have picked up the Premium Edition, or there won't be, like, you know, hordes of people that picked up the Premium Edition to get, to tap into the early access stuff. Context because instead of supporting new things that are coming out and people taking a risk on new projects and saying, you know, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to snag a copy of this. People just do what they know and what they regard as safe. Otherwise, Call of Duty Black Ops 2 wouldn't have sold 8.2 million copies. If it sold a million, if it sold a couple of a million, I'd even say the Black Ops figure makes a little bit more sense. But 8.2 million copies in one month for a game that is 14 years old is astounding figures. And, you know, I just look at this data and it just shows how predictable the games market has become. Because for some reason, for some reason games can't get people excited about non-mainstream things anymore. You know, it has to be the people that are really devoted to this sort of segment in the industry that want to play those things. If for some reason the games world can't get people excited for things, or can't get these mainstream fans excited about these new projects otherwise, because if they could, you wouldn't see this list. Now I know that July hasn't been the busiest of months, I know that, but what we have here is like, basically the safest games possible. There's nothing here that you look at and think, that's a surprise. Even, you know, Black Frag is one of the newest games on that list and it's a 1.6 million copies, which is like, fine. But at the same time, it's still probably the most famous Assassin's Creed game that's been remade. So I look at it and it does concern me a little bit because when you see data like this, it reaffirms other data. When we see PlayStation moving on from physical media and you look at it and you go, that is a horrible decision, it's so anti-consumer, and it is, it's anti-consumer for so many different reasons. But you've got to remember, the majority of people are playing video games and buying video games like this, and they don't really care about the other stuff. You know, if you want to support physical, that's great. Black Ops We're not talking about people here that are looking to preserve the industry and looking to try and shepherd it in a more sustainable manner. People just want to play what they want to play. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. You do look at it and you think, well, we're going this way because that's what the consumer's doing. And the consumer know what they want and they're happy to support what they want. And that's why the top-selling games on PlayStation in July 2026 are made up of two Call of Duty games, two EA Sports games, Grand Theft Auto, Minecraft, two modern remakes, and then the 1.0 launch of Powerworld. So make of that what you will."
"Otherwise, that's all the time that I have in today's episode of GRTV News, but I will be back now on Monday, actually, for the next one. So thank you for joining me, and I'll see you all then. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend."
