Sony Halts PC Releases: Blockbuster PlayStation Exclusives to Remain Console-Only Amid Strategic Shift
Renowned insider and Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier has provided new information about Sony's decision not to release its games on PC.
Last week, he already reported that the Japanese company is reconsidering its strategy, and for example, Marvel's Wolverine may never be released on PC: Insider reports on Sony's strategy change. Now he has shared the arguments that Sony is guided by.
What is known
To begin with, Schreier confirmed that indeed Sony's big-budget blockbusters will no longer be released on PC. In the past few weeks, such a fate has been determined for the samurai action Ghost of Yōtei and the roguelike shooter Saros.
For six years, Sony has been systematically releasing PlayStation Studios titles on PC with the aim of attracting a new audience to its ecosystem and encouraging gamers to buy a console to gain early access to high-class games. But in the end, the strategy did not bring the desired results, and some ports turned out to be financial failures.
Overall, Schreier highlights the following arguments of Sony's employees and managers in favor of exclusivity:
- financial feasibility — if the games do not sell well, there is no point in porting them;
- why buy a PlayStation if over time the games are released on PC?;
- overall brand prestige;
- difficulties in optimizing games and the failure of linking accounts to PlayStation Network;
- and most importantly: according to numerous rumors, the next-generation Xbox console will have Steam and EGS, which means that Microsoft's platform will be able to run all Sony games ported to PC, which the Japanese company considers unacceptable.
All of the above applies exclusively to single-player games from Sony's internal studios — service projects like Marathon and MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls will continue to be available on PC and potentially other platforms, as it is critically important for them.
It should be noted that third-party developer games for which Sony is the publisher will still be released on PC after the agreed exclusivity period, meaning that Death Stranding 2 and Kena: Scars of Kosmora will be released beyond PlayStation.
Source: Bloomberg
