Sony is reportedly abandoning its strategy of bringing its first-party PlayStation games to PC, with the company now set to return to console-only releases for all but a select number of online titles.
That’s according to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier who, citing “people familiar with the company’s plans”, wrote that while the online likes of Marathon and Marvel Tokon will still come to PC, Sony’s single-player games – including last year’s Ghost of Yotei and Housemarque’s upcoming Saros – will remain exclusive to PlayStation 5.
Schreier adds that Sony’s plans to bring Ghost of Yotei and other internally developed games to PC were “scrapped in recent weeks” – although his sources note the company could always change its mind again the future, given the unpredictable nature of the game industry.
As for why Sony is now changing course some six years after kicking off its PC release strategy with Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloomberg’s sources say a “faction” within the company remains concerned releasing PlayStation games on PC is damaging the console’s brand, and may impact sales of future consoles. Schreier also points to the dwindling success of PlayStation games on PC.
Unlike Microsoft, which launched a day-one PC release strategy for its first-party Xbox games with Sea of Thieves in 2018, Sony has adopted a far more inconsistent approach, leaving varying time spans between the launch of its games on PS5 and PC. Microsoft has taken its multiplatform strategy even further in recent years, of course, and has started releasing some of its major first-party games on PS5 after some time has passed.
Last year, former PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida shared his thoughts on bringing PlayStation-exclusive games to PC, saying the strategy was “almost like printing money”, and had many advantages. It provided additional revenue to invest in other projects, he explained, and helped the company’s franchises reach new audiences who do not own consoles – especially in regions where consoles are not as popular. This, he said, might convince them to purchase a PlayStation when a new entry in a series is released. It would appear Yoshida’s position is no longer the predominant one within Sony.