Sony recently hosted another edition of their State of Play, a live streaming event produced by Sony where they can showcase upcoming games for their consoles. It was introduced by the company in 2019 as a direct way for the company to interact with its fan base, and each edition only solidifies Sony’s popularity within the gaming community.
In June, 2022, the State of Play event became the first-ever iteration of the event series to break 1M concurrent viewers. Since then, the event series has broken 1M peak concurrent viewers consistently. The January 2024 iteration of the event became the most popular by peak viewership, recording 1.63M concurrent viewers. Although this recent May event was not able to break this record, it did record the highest-ever average viewership the series has seen.
In only 50 minutes of broadcasting time, the event garnered over 1M Hours Watched. The extremely high viewership for the event was supported by the enormous average audience, which settled at 1.25M Average Viewers after the event concluded.
This average viewership marks an increase of 40.9K concurrent viewers compared to the previous 2024 event, which set the peak viewership record for the live streaming event series. Although this month’s edition was not able to best this particular record, 1.5M concurrent viewers is nothing to scoff at, and it remains the second-highest peak concurrent viewership ever achieved by a State of Play event.
This viewership reflects much more than just the official PlayStation YouTube account’s viewership. We took all streamers to cover the event into account; this includes organizations such as IGN and Flow Games, as well as popular Twitch streamers who reacted to the event. Spanish streamer IlloJuan received over 45K concurrent viewers while covering the event, and American zackrawrr (Asmongold) received a whopping 48.1K Peak Viewers during his stream of the event.
The State of Play was also covered on Kick, but YouTube and Twitch contributed the vast majority of the event’s viewership. Many organizations to cover the event were hosted on YouTube Live, whereas Twitch viewership more reflected personal streamers reacting to the announcements.
Of course, the driving force behind the viewership for such an event is how excited fans are for the games which are being showcased. This edition of the State of Play showcased some of the most popular franchises Sony has to offer. God of War, Until Dawn, Path of Exile, Monster Hunter, Silent Hill, and many more were showcased at the event.
Alongside these established titles, Sony also teased fans with some upcoming games which are piquing interests. The upcoming Marvel Rivals title revealed it will be hosting a closed beta test for PS5 players in July of this year, and the new 5v5 shooter title Concord was on show; Sony also released that a beta is in the works for later this year, with the game’s official release planned for late-August of this year.
With so many titles on show and riving viewership to new heights, we at Streams Charts combed through the Twitch Chats of all streamers on the purple platform to cover the event, so that we can get an overview of which of these titles are most popular among Twitch viewers.
Across all Twitch streams covering the event, Silent Hill 2 emerged as the fan favourite, and by a long shot. The title was mentioned 19.8K times in Twitch Chats, setting it far ahead of the rest of the pack. The original Silent Hill 2, which was published in 2001, is a cult classic and a favourite for many. The remake of the game was announced almost 2 years ago now, and fans cannot wait for it to launch.
Next up, the next edition of the Monster Hunter franchise was mentioned 9.8K times in Chat. One of Sony’s most popular franchises, fans will have to wait until 2025 to get their hands on Monster Hunter Wilds. The game’s developer Capcom showcased some of the new monsters and characters coming to the franchise, and kicked discussion among fans into overdrive.
Until Dawn was one of the most popular horror games when it was released, enough so that it spawned an entire anthology of games to follow. The game is being remastered for the PS5, and although it is not bringing any new story to the table, the large following of the title was sizable enough to land the game a podium place in our rankings.
God of War Ragnarök was announced to be coming to PC this September. The game was one of the most well received PlayStation games to emerge in recent years, and PC gamers around the world mentioned the title 7K times in Twitch Chats as they celebrated the title finally coming to PC.
Astro Bot announced a brand-new game too, with 6 new galaxies and over 80 levels to explore. The title received 6.8K mentions, setting it just behind God of War. Following this, Path of Exile 2, the next generation action RPG announced it was coming to PlayStation with a new couch co-op feature. Fans are clearly excited for the return of couch co-op, which has been sorely missed by many in recent releases.
Concord, Dynasty Warriors: Origins, and Marvel Rivals all received thousands of mentions, although Concord stood ahead as the most popular of the three. The 5v5 multiplayer shooter received significantly more mentions than both the new hack-and-slash Dynasty Warriors title, as well as the highly hyped Marvel Rivals title.
Finally, Infinity Nikki took up the final spot with only 831 mentions. The open world dress-up game was not as popular as other titles in this ranking, although it did stand ahead of competitors such as Where Winds Meet, Behemoth, and the new Alien: Rogue Incursion title.
