In recent years, practically every major publisher has started to look for its own game as a service — and Sony has not been left out. Even after failures and cancellations, the company continues to invest in the model, with future projects such as Marathon and the recently announced Horizon Hunters Gathering.
Sony’s last quarter results help explain this insistence on GAAS. The financial report brought a striking fact: revenue from microtransactions on PSN exceeded the total sum of sales of physical and digital games.
In the quarter ending December 2025, Sony recorded ¥835.477 million in gaming software revenue (about US$5.3 billion). Of this total, ¥418.093 million came from microtransactions — more than half of revenue. In practice, this means that in-game purchases yielded more than the combined sale of complete games, both digital and physical.
With ever-increasing budgets and a single failure can be fatal for a studio, a successful GAAS represents steady revenue and risk dilution for the company. On the other hand, achieving long-lasting multiplayer is becoming increasingly difficult in the current market.
As the data shows, cosmetics, battle passes and other additional content have proven to be an extremely profitable business — to the point of surpassing traditional game sales.
Source: Sony
