The Console Wars Ended in 2025, but PlayStation’s Victory Was 30 Years in the Making
Three decades of cultural relevance, current sales dominance, and a future-proofed hardware strategy led by the PS5 Pro sealed the win.
If nothing else, when it comes to gaming, 2025 will be remembered as the year the three-decade console wars effectively ended – with PlayStation emerging as the definitive, and quantifiably dominant, winner.
Sony’s latest fiscal report shows the PlayStation 5 has sold 84.1 million units worldwide and is on track to surpass 90 million by the end of the calendar year, a figure that’s nearly triple Microsoft’s Xbox sales and gives the Japanese brand a 71 percent market share, according to data from strategic foresight firm Quantumrun. On a recent earnings call, Sony Group CFO Lin Tao said the PS5 is “only in the middle of its journey” and noted that its lifecycle is “getting longer and longer” – a sharp reversal from the company’s claim just two years ago that the console had entered its “latter stages.”
So how did we get here? Let’s start with the PlayStation 5 Pro.
When it launched a little over a year ago, Sony’s flagship console split opinion: some fans considered it too pricey, others felt the library of games didn’t yet justify the hardware, while a dedicated core welcomed it and reveled in its raw power and potential.
The PS5 Pro introduced Sony’s proprietary “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution” (PSSR) technology, an AI-based upscaling algorithm that eliminated compromise, meaning console gamers no longer had to pick between graphical fidelity and performance. It also arrived with advanced ray-tracing that produced the most realistic lighting, reflections and shadows ever seen on a games console, rendering graphical elements up to three times faster than the original PS5, while supporting frame rates up to 120fps at the same time. To achieve this, Sony collaborated with industry-leading chipmaker AMD, and upon the PS5 Pro’s launch in November 2024, PlayStation’s lead architect Mark Cerny revealed the console’s custom-built chip utilized AMD’s then-unreleased RDNA 4 architecture. Essentially, Sony used the PS5 Pro to debut high-end PC technology that wasn’t yet publicly available, and future-proofed its ecosystem with power never found on a home console before.
Now, with both the benefit of hindsight and an eye on what’s coming in 2026, it’s clear that Sony was playing the long game. 2026 is shaping up to be a big year for gaming with major titles including GTA 6 and Wolverine set to launch – but as it stands today, it seems the PS5 Pro is in a lane of its own.
Developers continue to push the limits when it comes to current-gen hardware. Games like “Monster Hunter Wilds” (released in February 2025), for example, are already so demanding that both the original PS5 and Xbox Series X struggle to achieve consistently high frame rates on high graphics settings, forcing users to revert back to the “C-word” (compromise). Tao’s assertion that the PlayStation 5 is only mid-way through its lifecycle suggests we might not even see a PlayStation 6 before 2030. So if games in 2025 are already pushing console’s to their limits, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that PS5 Pro owners have made a safe investment.
Furthermore, 2025 was also the year Sony welcomed some of Microsoft’s biggest first-party titles into its ecosystem, including “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” and the “Forza Horizon 5” – titles previously exclusive to Xbox. While platform exclusivity isn’t as rigid as it once was – indeed, Sony has ported some PlayStation games like “Helldivers 2” to the Xbox, and many more of its biggest franchises including The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, and Spider-Man are available on PC – the fact that the PS5 Pro provides 45% faster graphics rendering, better AI-based upscaling up to 8K, and 16.7 TFLOPs delivering almost 40% more GPU power does pose an interesting question: Do Xbox games run better on a PlayStation?
Sony’s triumph didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t even happen over the course of this past year. It’s a victory 30 years in the making – a result of three decades in which PlayStation’s impact on both gaming and culture can’t be overstated.
When the console wars started in the late 1980s, Sony wasn’t even one of the original contenders. In fact, while Nintendo and Sega were slugging it out in a two-way battle, Nintendo and Sony were secretly working together on a hybrid console that would have merged the former’s SNES cartridges with the latter’s new “Super Disc” technology. The project – which came to be nicknamed the “Nintendo PlayStation” – was ultimately shelved when relations soured between the companies, but proved to be the catalyst for Sony’s subsequent dominance.
The unreleased “Nintendo PlayStation” with only two units rumored to exist. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
The unreleased “Nintendo PlayStation” with only two units rumored to exist. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
The unreleased “Nintendo PlayStation” with only two units rumored to exist. (Photo: Heritage Auctions)
It wasn’t until 1995, when Sony’s PlayStation 1 reached Europe and the U.S., that the console wars had its “Here Comes A New Challenger” moment. The arrival of the PS1 not only marked the start of modern gaming era – where sprites were swapped for polygons, and 3D graphics were possible on your home TV – it unleashed a completely new chapter of advertising for the gaming industry.
And from the very start it was clear the gloves were off. Sony’s marketing seemed driven by an anarchic energy that actively clawed at the wholesome image Sega and Nintendo had tried to established, and it carved away at their user bases.
But Sony wasn’t only going after existing gamers – it was looking to create new ones.
For its futuristic racing game, “WipEout,” PlayStation enlisted electronic heavyweights The Chemical Brothers to craft the soundtrack, and as part of its promotion of the PlayStation 1 it partnered with nightclubs to create chill-out rooms where ravers could relax and play games – two of the earliest indications of Sony’s emerging signature strategy, one that brought together previously separate worlds.
A chill-out room created by Sony at London’s iconic Ministry of Sound nightclub.
A chill-out room created by Sony at London’s iconic Ministry of Sound nightclub.
A late-90s PlayStation 1 ad. Sony sought to appeal to a broader group of gamers with PlayStation.
In 1999, PlayStation dropped “Mental Wealth” featuring the instantly iconic “Alien Girl,” a 40-second commercial that defined Sony’s radical new perspective on gaming. The avant-garde spot was part of a series of subversive advertising by the Japanese tech giant and marked a cultural shift within the global entertainment industry – one buoyed by the emergence of the internet, the new Wild West. It would go on to become of the most memorable commercials of the decade.
At the turn of the millennium, Sony promoted the launch of its new console with PlayStation-branded condoms. The move, while undoubtedly controversial, was anything but tone-deaf: it spoke directly to, and in the language of, a large part of its target audience – sex-obsessed adolescents. Young adults were a rapidly growing demographic within gaming, something no doubt driven by Sony’s marketing.
Sometimes controversial, always memorable. A selection of PlayStation ads from the late-90s and early-00s.
Sometimes controversial, always memorable. A selection of PlayStation ads from the late-90s and early-00s.
Sometimes controversial, always memorable. A selection of PlayStation ads from the late-90s and early-00s.
Sometimes controversial, always memorable. A selection of PlayStation ads from the late-90s and early-00s.
Sometimes controversial, always memorable. A selection of PlayStation ads from the late-90s and early-00s.
Sometimes controversial, always memorable. A selection of PlayStation ads from the late-90s and early-00s.
With the PlayStation 2, Sony also effectively delivered the world’s first modern multi-media home entertainment system. The new console was backwards compatible, integrated with high-end home theater systems, and featured USB ports that opened up a world of new possibilities when it came to peripherals. It also included a built-in DVD drive so owners could game and watch movies on a single device. Unsurprisingly, the PS2 would become the most successful video games console of all time – a record it still holds today.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, Sony proved it wasn’t just selling a product – it was selling a state of mind. The PlayStation brand has always blurred the boundaries between in-game and in real life, challenged narratives around gaming, and infiltrated popular culture through cool collaborations and audacious advertising. From collabs with Balenciaga and Nike x Travis Scott, to turning its games into worldwide TV hits like HBO’s The Last of Us, PlayStation’s current success can be traced back to the many ways it sought to cement itself uniquely within culture over the past three decades.
