How can a game that isn't free have a bigger number of players than unites sold? Legit asking lol.

Piracy doesn't look to be an option, at least in the sites that I like to check to see piracy numbers.

The report will be available on February 13th, so about 2 weeks from now.

I doubt they'll disclose any specific game sales numbers.

I was actually surprised to see The Show in the 2024 top 20 most sold (digital) games on PS and XBOX. If the game sold despite gp then that means a good chunk of money for Sony this year now that they dropped the day 1 release on gp.

Yeah, that's most likely why the drop of GP. Like what Sega did, they used GP to build up an audience on the platform to the point that sales were now good enough that they can drop adding it on GP and reap the financial benefit of that. It's a good long-term play using GP to their advantage.

I'm pretty sure:

Suppose a dad buys a game for the family PS5, both of his sons have a PS+ account to play online. They are counted as individual players. 1 copy sold equals 3 players. 

I bet it's a lot less common today with digital copies. But physical copies would have had some huge differences, between second hand sales and games being leant out. (Someone passes out their copy of God of War to their 4 friends, Sony registers that as 1 copy sold and 5 different players.) 

Makes sense.

Helped in those 3 games sales =P

I don't have much to add to The-Pi-Guy's explanation. The disparity between playercount and sales in older games where physical dominated used to be quite big, but this gradually changed.

When Sony updated their GT Sport figure to 14 million players, I estimated the sales to have been at around 9 or 10 million. But Insomniac's leak had GT Sport selling close to 13 million, not far behind the playercount. I expect a similar difference for Helldivers 2 if not smaller, coz more recent games have higher digital ratios, and the game is also available on PC where it's more popular.

Only got Astro Bot. I wish it was harder but I'm happy to contribute!

Was Hermen Hulst just bitchslapped for the GAAs fiasco?
Beginning Apr 1st (no joke), he seems to have been sort-of demoted:

Nishino was elevated to CEO of Sony Interactive’s Platform Business Group in May 2024. He shared oversight of the PlayStation maker with Herman Hulst, who was CEO of the division’s studio business group. Those appointments were made in the wake of the departure of CEO Jim Ryan. The elevation of Nishino to the top post overseeing all of SIE caught industry observers by surprise.

Hard to say. You could say yes because it was his work to oversee the projects and channel the best ideas and a lot of those ideas are now cancelled because they were services ... but they were services to begin with because his boss was asking for services. Not a lot of room to play there.

At the same time the higher you are in the chain the less you are actually in contact with the people who are making the games. Maybe they realized the co-ceo structure was redundant and was keeping Hulst from what they want him to actually do.

Only time will tell but in the world of money it wasn't bad news. https://automaton-media.com/en/news/sony-stocks-hit-new-record-high-in-japan-following-corporate-restructuring-announcement/