The publisher is said to be stepping away from PC ports of PlayStation titles like Ghost of Yotei. Last year’s PlayStation standout, Ghost of Yotei, is not expected to come to PC.
Sony Group Corp. is reportedly no longer looking to bring its biggest PlayStation 5 releases to PC, shifting back to console exclusivity after six years of testing multi-platform waters. Online games are still expected to ship across multiple platforms, but single-player releases like Ghost of Yotei and Saros would remain locked to PlayStation 5. The change may reflect both underwhelming PC sales for recent PlayStation games and internal worries that PC releases could dilute the console brand and soften demand for the PlayStation 5.
What Sony Is Reportedly Cutting From the PC Plan
Sony Group Corp. is said to be abandoning plans to ship its major PlayStation 5 games on PC, a significant strategic turn after six years of flirting with broader platform releases, according to people familiar with the company’s plans. Multiplayer-focused titles like Marathon and Marvel Tokon are still set to launch across multiple platforms, but single-player games such as last year’s samurai hit Ghost of Yotei and the upcoming action title Saros would remain exclusive to PlayStation 5, the people said, asking not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to discuss the strategy publicly. The people also warned that the video-game business can change fast and that Sony’s roadmap is always in motion. Even so, they said PlayStation has recently dropped plans to bring Ghost of Yotei and other internally developed games to PC in the past few weeks. Two titles made by external teams but published by PlayStation, Death Stranding 2 and the forthcoming Kena: Scars of Kosmora, are still slated to release on PC this year.
A PlayStation spokesperson declined to comment. There are likely multiple factors behind the shift.
One factor is that several recent PlayStation games haven’t performed strongly on PC. Another, the people said, is an internal concern that releasing games on PC could weaken the console’s identity and chip away at sales of the PlayStation 5 – and whatever comes after it.
For decades, Sony’s core playbook for selling PlayStation hardware was to keep its tentpole franchises exclusive to its own consoles. In 2020, it shifted course and began pushing more games to personal computers through Steam. Since then, the company has brought much of its biggest lineup to PC, including franchises like God of War and The Last of Us.
But the approach became messy and left plenty of players unsure what to expect. Most PC ports arrived months or even years after the PlayStation releases. The cadence never settled into a consistent rhythm, and announcements often felt scattershot. The company also frustrated PC players by requiring PlayStation Network accounts to access many of the games.
How Nintendo and Microsoft Diverge – and Why It Matters
Now Sony appears to be opting for a simpler message: return to console exclusives. Its two major console rivals have taken very different routes.
Nintendo has kept nearly all of its releases tied to its own Switch hardware, while Microsoft has repositioned itself as a multi-platform publisher that ships everything on PC and many games on PlayStation as well. Another element in Sony’s thinking may be the next Xbox, which is rumored to run on Windows and support PC games. Some PlayStation executives may not love the idea of a flagship franchise like God of War running on the next Xbox console.
Source: Bloomberg
