More Astro Bot has got the sunlight. Big things are about to befall the franchise since Astro Bot was described by SIE chief Herman Hulst as one of PlayStation’s “most exciting recent successes.”
According to Hulst, the game was a “smash hit,” selling well and garnering award recognition with universal acclaim from fans and critics alike. Now here’s the kicker: Sony wants to elevate Astro Bot and make it an “enduring and iconic” PlayStation brand. Did you catch that? More Astro. More Bot. More commercials with that adorable character bouncing all over the place on the PS5.
Let’s talk numbers. Some gamers seem to debate if Astro Bot sales were truly good or just… well, fairly good. One of the responses in the Twitter thread said the game had sold over 2.3 million copies worldwide by March 2025. That kind of selling is pretty commendable for a brand-new platformer. Now here is the interesting bit: 37 percent of those sales went to *new* PlayStation owners. Now, that’s a biggie. It means that Astro Bot wasn’t just playing for the Escribo; they were bringing in new faces.
That being said, the bot didn’t have the same magical effect everywhere. In Japan, first-week sales were so low they’d hardly been 12,700 copies. Ouch. On the other hand, Sony reckoned the relative slow pace of sales was alright and set about bundling the title with PS5 consoles to push units. So yeah, “trash” sales? No way. But you know, not Spider-Man numbers either.
Perhaps some bad fortunes do not go down well with some, while some others truly detest them being crowned PlayStation’s new baby. Some responses tore the notion apart. One user said that Sony was going to “milk the life out of it with remaster after remake after remaster.” Oof. Another cited LittleBigPlanet as a cautionary tale—remember when that was meant to be a flagship franchise? Yeah… about that.
Here comes the live service drama. Some replies called out Sony for the recent embrace of GaaS, with one user sarcastically pleading, “stop with the GaaS bullshit hahaha!” Meanwhile, others just wanted Hulst to start talking about *other* PlayStation flops—looking at you, Concord.
Then again, not every reaction was salty. Some gamers were happy that a title developed in Japan received top-level recognition at Sony. “Glad to see a Japanese team back in the spotlight,” one reply said enthusiastically, praising the unique charm of Astro Bot when contrasted with Sony’s usual cinematic blockbuster fare. Another even went so far as to suggest porting it to Steam, reasoning that more people should experience the magic of the DualSense controller in the game.
So, what’s next for Astro Bot? If something really comes from Hulst’s words, sequels, spin-offs, and probably a serious multimedia push. Will it really be PlayStation’s next Mario? Time will tell. But for now, it certainly has the backing of Sony’s biggest executives, and that should count for something.
Nevertheless, if you are undecided, the argument goes: 2.3 million players can’t all be wrong, can they?
