Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation are not planning to release “any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year,” which is the period from now until 31 March 2025. This was stated by them during their fiscal year 2023 Q3 earnings briefing (via Gematsu).

Sony Group president, chief operating officer, and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki said:

“Regarding first-party software, we aim to continue to focus on producing high-quality works and developing live service games. But while major projects are currently under development, we do not plan to release any new major existing franchise titles next fiscal year (Editor’s Note: ends March 31, 2025) like God of War Ragnarok and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Although the burden of acquisition related costs will ease next fiscal year, we expect profit from first-party software to decrease slightly from this fiscal year due to the impact of the decrease in sales. Due to this, operating income for the next fiscal year is currently expected to increase slightly from this fiscal year. However, while this our baseline, we are reviewing measures for further improvement in profitability in advance of the annual forecast results announcement this May.”

They are also forecasting less sales for the PS5 from now on as the console enters its later years:

“Regarding the PlayStation 5 hardware, which will enter its fifth year since launch, partially due to its entering the latter half of the console cycle, we aim to optimize sales with a greater emphasis on balance with profits, so we anticipate a gradual decline in unit sales from next fiscal year onwards.

We expect third-party software sales to continue to expand gradually due to the expansion of the PlayStation 5 install base and the high level of user engagement. In network services, we expect subscribers to be on par with this fiscal year or slightly less due to the impact of price revision we implemented in this fiscal year, but we expect sales to gradually expand due to a shift to attractive premium services.”

It seems like it’s going to be a slow year for PlayStation and the PS5 for most of 2024 if this is any indication. That being said, we still have upcoming exclusives like Rise Of The Ronin and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Perhaps, while we won’t get titles from major existing franchises like God Of War and Spider-Man, we might still get smaller brand new games this year.

We’ll likely be seeing more game announcements in the summer season so don’t worry, there are still plenty of games to look forward to.