Highlights
- Sea of Thieves reigns supreme on PlayStation as Xbox's multiplatform hit, topping download charts across major regions in May.
- Xbox's strategic move to port first-party games to rival platforms pays off, with Sea of Thieves leading sales on PS5.
- Sea of Thieves trounced the competition in May, outselling blockbuster titles and even PlayStation exclusives on PS5.
PlayStation's recently released download charts show that Xbox first-party game Sea of Thieves has reigned supreme across major regions for the month of May. As the last of Xbox's initial batch of multiplatform first-party titles, Sea of Thieves was released for PlayStation 5 on April 30, and has been performing exceptionally well sales-wise on the Sony platform.
In an unexpected strategic pivot for many, Xbox announced earlier this year that it would be porting four of its back-catalog first-party games on rival platforms PlayStation and Nintendo, namely Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves. Although several fans of the brand were disappointed with Xbox's sudden push for multiplatform releases, the company has seen a fair amount of success with these four games, especially Sea of Thieves, on competing platforms.
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Before it even launched on PS5, Sea of Thieves was already making headlines over its preorders dominating the PlayStation Store, even outpacing Sony-published games like MLB The Show 24 and Rise of the Ronin. The pirate adventure's success story continues as Sea of Thieves has topped the May download charts for PS5, which were recently published in a new PlayStation Blog post. This data was compiled from the US/Canada and EU regions, two of the largest markets in gaming, which means an Xbox first-party title was the best-selling game on PS5 for the month of May.
Sea of Thieves Trounced Huge Games to Take The Top Spot
Impressively, Sea of Thieves beat out established blockbuster titles like Madden NFL 24, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, NBA 2K24, and even PlayStation exclusives Helldivers 2 and Stellar Blade. It's worth noting that Sea of Thieves also topped PlayStation's April charts for Europe, and has now expanded that lead to the US as well, indicating extremely strong sales performance even in its second month after launch. Funnily, the PS4 charts for the same regions in May were also led by an Xbox-owned game, Minecraft.
With its initial slate of multiplatform first-party titles experiencing a healthy amount of success, Microsoft will undoubtedly be compelled to port even more first-party games to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. Recent rumors suggest that at least six more Xbox games are slated to go multiplatform, with the newly announced Doom: The Dark Ages also confirming a PS5 release on day one. The slow pivot away from console exclusivity isn't limited to Xbox either, as PlayStation's upcoming LEGO Horizon Adventures will also release on Switch day and date.
Sea of Thieves
- Platform(s)
- Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S , Xbox One , PC
- Released
- March 20, 2018
- Developer(s)
- Rare
- Publisher(s)
- Microsoft Game Studios
- Genre(s)
- Adventure
