PS5 Hits 5 Years As The Second Fastest-Selling PlayStation In US History

Five years after its launch, the PlayStation 5 has firmly cemented its place in Sony history. According to sales data shared by Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, the PS5 is now the second fastest-selling PlayStation console ever in the US, with only the legendary PlayStation 2 still ahead of it.

For a platform that launched in the middle of a global hardware shortage and supply chain chaos, that alone is a remarkable milestone.

Piscatella recently revisited his sales charts to mark the PS5s fifth anniversary, mirroring a similar look he did for the original PlayStation on its 30th birthday. The new data highlights not only how quickly the PS5 has spread across living rooms, but also which games have actually driven those sales. The picture that emerges is clear: familiar mega-franchises still rule, and Call of Duty continues to be a kingmaker.

In the ranking of best-selling PS5 games in the US since launch, Call of Duty shows up three times inside the top five. That means multiple entries of Activisions shooter series have managed to carve out space at the very top of the charts on a single platform in just half a decade. For all the talk about changing player habits and live service fatigue, Americans are still buying Call of Duty every year in huge numbers.

The rest of the top ten paints an equally predictable but telling story. Three of the best-sellers are annual sports titles, the kind of comfort food releases that define gaming calendars: think big-ball franchises that drop like clockwork every year and keep players hooked with online modes, career saves, and the urge to chase the next season. These games may not always dominate headlines, but they quietly dominate sales charts.

The remaining heavy-hitters belong to PlayStation Studios themselves. Three of the top sellers are first-party exclusives, two of which come from Insomniac Games. That is less a coincidence and more a reflection of output. Over the last five years, Insomniac has been one of the most active teams inside PlayStation Studios, delivering headline PS5 titles instead of leaning mainly on remasters and remakes. When you release big, polished exclusives that truly showcase new hardware, players reward you with full-price purchases.

All of this is happening while the PS5s main competition, Xbox Series X and S, continues to struggle with momentum. Some fans jokingly note that when your rival is Xbox under Phil Spencer, it becomes a lot easier to brag about being a best-selling console. That is obviously an exaggeration, but it reflects a real perception gap: Sony has kept a more focused console identity and a more consistent first-party release schedule, while Microsoft has often looked torn between being a hardware maker and a Game Pass platform holder.

Still, edging close to PS2s pace is no small feat. The PS2 thrived in a very different era: cheaper hardware, a massive DVD boom, and fewer competing digital distractions. For the PS5 to even be in that conversation in an age of smartphones, subscription services, and free-to-play juggernauts speaks volumes about how strong the PlayStation brand remains and how effectively Sony has navigated this generation so far.

The more interesting question is what happens next. We are only halfway through the PS5 generation at best. A slimmer console revision is already on shelves, cloud features are expanding, and Sony still has several big first-party games in the pipeline. If third-party giants like Call of Duty keep performing and PlayStation Studios can maintain a steady stream of must-play exclusives, the PS5 could close the gap with the PS2 even further. Whether it can ever overtake that all-time icon is another matter, but watching how the charts evolve by the end of the generation will be fascinating for anyone who follows the business of games.

For now, the takeaway is simple: five years in, PS5 is not just surviving. It is dominating sales pace, powering huge franchises, and proving that the traditional console box still has plenty of life left in it.