For the first time in what seems like forever, PlayStation owners were left staring at a storefront with no current promotions as the PS Store Deals tab went dark on May 7, 2026. Not a banner. No savings. Not a department. Just a hole where a nearly permanent fixture formerly stood.
Twelve hours later or so the PS Store Deals tab silently reappeared. The problem is it was returned with a specific date. Sony has announced that the Next Level Savings deal will be available on PS5 and PS4 games when it starts on Wednesday, May 13, 2026.
What happened on May 7
The promised replacement did not materialize and the old sale expired at midnight. Simultaneously, the Deals area vanished from the console itself, the mobile app and the browser. This was not an isolated failure, other users from other regions (including Japanese PSN accounts) reported the same issue.
Meanwhile, some PS Store wishlist alerts were still popping up, letting consumers know their saved titles were on sale, even if they weren’t. One commenter on Push Square said they received an email from Sony saying that Zombie Army VR was now $24 instead of $30, but when they clicked through it was still full price. The alerts weren’t evidence of some secret ongoing campaign, they were a carryover from the last sales cycle.
The simplest explanation is that when there is nothing to display, the Deals tab just disappears. No tab, no active sale.
A little break in an extended run
Since about the PS4 generation, the PS Store has been holding consecutive promotional sales, with one designated promo continuing straight into the next. Even for a half-day, the concept of a clean split between sales was unique enough to draw attention. Sammy Barker, editor of Push Square, said he couldn’t recall the last time the store had no sales at all.
Additionally, the time coincides with a more comprehensive PS5 UI redesign that is presently in beta. Some users who have access to the beta firmware have already seen early iterations of the new layout that Sony is planning for the PS Store, which has been compared to Netflix. It’s unclear if the brief sales gap was related to backend preparation for that update, but the timing is at least noteworthy.
The brief interval between the last promotion and Next Level Savings feels less like a change in policy and more like regular scheduling because the annual Days of Play sale, which usually takes place from late May until June, is quickly coming.
