Sony former exec says the company is "printing money" by releasing PlayStation games on PC

[Alfonso Maruccia]

The big picture: Shuhei Yoshida spent more than three decades at Sony, leading the PlayStation project from its early years. Now retired, the BAFTA Fellowship-awarded industry veteran is revealing some of the gaming industry's worst-kept secrets – starting with the significant role played by the PC platform.

In a recent interview, Shuhei Yoshida confirmed the "rumors" that everyone in the gaming industry has known for years: Sony is making substantial profits from PC conversions of its PlayStation blockbusters while simultaneously expanding its market reach, particularly where PCs are the dominant gaming platform.

Yoshida, who retired from Sony on January 15, 2025, is now sharing insights into the company's future plans. He had already advocated for bringing PlayStation games to PC when Sony was still committed to strict console exclusivity. Today, the company actively supports PC ports, aiming to convert more PC gamers into PlayStation console buyers over time.

According to Yoshida, releasing a PlayStation game on PC is beneficial for several reasons. It introduces the game to a new audience, growing the fanbase at a fraction of the original development cost. Porting PlayStation titles to PC is significantly cheaper than developing new games from scratch, he explained, making it "almost like printing money." Those profits, in turn, help fund expensive new AAA projects for PlayStation.

Sony is currently in the process of bringing many PlayStation exclusives to PC through platforms like Steam and GOG, though Bloodborne may be an exception. The inability to play FromSoftware's horror Soulslike title has become a point of contention for many Dark Souls fans, myself included. However, PS4 emulation is making notable progress on this front.

Yoshida speculated that FromSoftware's boss, Hidetaka Miyazaki, might be interested in handling the port on his own, with no direct involvement from Sony.

Bringing PlayStation games to PC is a major win for business, especially in markets like China, where consoles aren't as popular. Yoshida confirmed that China is a massive market, and PC releases are essential for reaching that audience. While the "very small" console market in China is still growing, successful releases will likely focus on PC conversions for the foreseeable future

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Sony former exec says the company is "printing money" by releasing PlayStation games on PC

 

[NumberNine]

Yes, but they could be printing more money if they didn't require playstation accounts to play PC games.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Bring that whole back catalogue of PS exclusive games from the PS3 era and before to the PC plz.

Killzone anyone?

 

[m4a4]

Screw console exclusives. Gaming no longer needs to have walled gardens, and I welcome it that way.

Way more profitable to reach as many gamers as possible anyways...

 

[FaTaL]

Sony has made some great PC ports, but I will never ever buy a playstation.
Consoles suck a$$.

 

[Skjorn]

Bring that whole back catalogue of PS exclusive games from the PS3 era and before to the PC plz.

Killzone anyone?

Guerilla said Killzone is buried already. You get strong woman vs robot dinosaurs now. They've already said they made Horizon because they wanted to do the polar opposite of KZ. You get nothing but soft games from them now.

I hate everything about today's Sony. Demons souls PC port never came, the greatest looking game Sony has. They bought the GotY 2018 for God of War, that soft slop didn't come close to RDR2.
No more MP in TLoU games. Just a skeleton of what they used to be really.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Yes, selling a game more times makes more money.

This is not an insider industry secret. It's basic math.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Guerilla said Killzone is buried already. You get strong woman vs robot dinosaurs now. They've already said they made Horizon because they wanted to do the polar opposite of KZ. You get nothing but soft games from them now.

I hate everything about today's Sony. Demons souls PC port never came, the greatest looking game Sony has. They bought the GotY 2018 for God of War, that soft slop didn't come close to RDR2.
No more MP in TLoU games. Just a skeleton of what they used to be really.

-And yet there was Killzone crossover content in Helldivers 2.

Yes, maybe Killzone is done in terms of new content, but if they can dust it off and sell it for $20 to 2 million people why wouldn't they.

Free monay and all.

 

[Nobina]

Why even have a console then? I remember reading that Sony and Xbox are losing money on console sales which then they make up by selling games.

 

[Vulcanproject]

The ports have generally been of decent quality, that also helps! There have been some notable issues but they are porting good games that are reasonably playable on decent hardware. The Last of Us was a bit of a disaster with the lack of video memory optimization but it was eventually fixed.

Game pass and Sony games are a massive victory for PC over consoles. I have a PS5 but in the last year I have only really played Gran Turismo and Astrobot on it.

 

[Inthenstus]

Shocker..

 

[Skjorn]

-And yet there was Killzone crossover content in Helldivers 2.

Yes, maybe Killzone is done in terms of new content, but if they can dust it off and sell it for $20 to 2 million people why wouldn't they.

Free monay and all.

Crossover content or what someone at guerilla actually said, what will I place more faith in...hmm..

Why wouldn't Sony make a smart decision? Good question..

They remastered horizon1 already, you'd think if KZ wasn't dead they'd have done that. Bluepoint had a GoW online multiplayer service game get canceled. The actual great Sony remake studio was not working on KZ.

Sony selling for cheap is hilarious btw. $20 lol yeah, maybe on summer sale 3 years after release.

Now, where they could make some money is selling the IP if they're just going to let it rot.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Crossover content or what someone at guerilla actually said, what will I place more faith in...hmm..

Why wouldn't Sony make a smart decision? Good question..

They remastered horizon1 already, you'd think if KZ wasn't dead they'd have done that. Bluepoint had a GoW online multiplayer service game get canceled. The actual great Sony remake studio was not working on KZ.

Sony selling for cheap is hilarious btw. $20 lol yeah, maybe on summer sale 3 years after release.

Now, where they could make some money is selling the IP if they're just going to let it rot.

-Hmmm what has actually happened in actual real life or what some corpo shill says... hmmm...

Sony follows the old adage "they always make the right decision, after they've made all the wrong ones" to a T.

No one thought a day would come where we see PS exclusive games on PC and yet here we are. One day someone in their C-Suite will wake up and say "what if we brought our PS3 and older library of games to Steam! PC Gamers are ****ing *****'s these people wait in line to buy $3000 defective GPUs, surely they'll buy our old slop" and that will be that.

And fair point on the $20 thing. It'll be $40 minimum and take 3 years to hit a reasonable price, but I can wait. I've waited this long after all.

 

[Axeia]

Maybe thats the one nice thing to come out of the Concord fiasco then burning 400 million on that failure is good motivation for using the money printer.

Never been into consoles* so the more and faster they release on PC the better.

*Need a decent PC anyway. The price of a videocard at the console level tends to be cheaper (although NVIDIA and AMD really seem intent on changing that lately).
No additional costs for online play, better deals on games, bigger game catalog due to near perfect backwards compatibility, mods, more input options, what not to love.

 

[RaXelliX]

Yes, but they could be printing more money if they didn't require playstation accounts to play PC games.

I think they already gave up on that. Unfortunately not retroactively for already released games.