The question is when they will shut down the studio they acquired specifically for this purpose.

Between 2020 and 2025, Sony carried out a major strategic shift: in order to maximize profits and reach new audiences, it released its most popular PlayStation-exclusive games on PC as well, although often with considerable delays. Here is the list of games released during this period:

• Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition – August 7, 2020
• Days Gone – May 18, 2021
• God of War – January 14, 2022
• Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered – August 12, 2022
• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – November 18, 2022
• Sackboy: A Big Adventure – October 27, 2022
• Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection – October 19, 2022
• Returnal – February 15, 2023
• The Last of Us Part I – March 28, 2023
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart – July 26, 2023
• Helldivers 2 – February 8, 2024
• Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition – March 21, 2024
• Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut – May 16, 2024
• Until Dawn – October 4, 2024
• God of War Ragnarök – September 19, 2024
• Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered – October 31, 2024
• LEGO Horizon Adventures – November 14, 2024
• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – January 30, 2025
• Stellar Blade – June 11, 2025
• The Last of Us Part II Remastered – April 3, 2025
• Lost Soul Aside – May 30, 2025

At first, everything was going well. Sony acquired Nixxes Software, a studio specializing in PC porting, to create high-quality PC versions of its games. Sales began to decline, however, probably because PC players were not particularly happy about receiving games a year or even later. The controversy surrounding PSN accounts did not help either, as Sony tried to force players to use a PlayStation Network account in order to play, but failed. In March this year, Bloomberg reported that Sony would return to full exclusivity for single-player games, beginning with Ghost of Yōtei and Saros. In May, Bloomberg added that PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst had informed staff about the change. Now Hideaki Nishino, CEO of PlayStation, has publicly commented on the situation in an interview with Famitsu.

“We have always determined platform selection based on the characteristics of each title. If releasing a title on PC would maximize the gaming experience, we will continue to consider that possibility. Our current main policy is that, for single-player games developed in-house, we will further refine the value of the gaming experience offered by PlayStation. At the same time, we believe it is important for live-service games to reach a wider audience through online multiplayer, so we continue to regard releases on PlayStation 5 and PC as the standard. Regardless of platform, we make every decision based on the principle of delivering the best possible gaming experience, one that fully uses the unique characteristics of each title” – Nishino said.

So, as Bloomberg had previously mentioned, Sony will continue to release games tied to online services on both PlayStation and PC, while single-player games will permanently become exclusive titles again. This is somewhat surprising when considering that sales of recent PlayStation-exclusive games have actually fallen on consoles: Ghost of Yōtei has trailed behind Ghost of Tsushima, while Saros has sold far fewer copies than Returnal. One would think Sony would try to maximize sales from these titles by bringing PC into the equation as well.

This strategic change is also reflected in the updated wording of the company’s annual strategic summary, published a few days ago on Sony’s investor relations website. While last year Sony planned to continue its efforts to bring its first-party titles to multiple platforms such as PC, that sentence was removed, and replaced with the recently announced focus on using AI tools: “In addition, Sony is utilizing AI to unleash the creativity of studios and further enhance the PlayStation experience. Within the studio business, Sony aims to improve productivity through the use of AI-powered tools, allowing development teams to reinvest their time into building richer worlds and gameplay experiences.”

This is how you turn your back on an entire audience, dear Sony…

Source: WCCFTech, ResetEra, Sony