Sony will wait at least a year to port most PlayStation exclusives to PC

[Daniel Sims]

In brief: Before the end of 2022, Sony will have released five PC ports of formerly PlayStation-exclusive games within the calendar year. However, the company has never clarified how long it wants to wait between an initial PlayStation game launch and its PC port until now.

PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst said on Tuesday that Sony plans to release PC ports of its single-player games at least a year after launching them on PlayStation consoles. Online-oriented live-service games, however, may launch on PlayStation and PC simultaneously.

The comments, made in an interview with YouTuber Julien Chièze, track with how Sony has handled PC ports so far. God of War and Spider-Man initially came to the PlayStation 4 in 2018 and arrived on PC this year. Sony will soon release PC versions of Uncharted 4 (2016), Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020), and Sackboy: A Big Adventure (2020).

Last month, Sony-owned studio Naughty Dog said The Last of Us Part 1 would come to PC "very soon" after its PS5 launch, which likely means sometime in 2023. Other Sony PC conversions that could emerge next year include Horizon: Forbidden West and Ghost of Tsushima. Rumors suggest that the award-winning Returnal is also headed to PC before long. Much less is known about Sony's upcoming live-service games, however.

PlayStation Studios is known chiefly for producing story-oriented, cinematic, single-player games with high production values like Spider-Man and Uncharted. Sony hasn't made many recent attempts at multiplayer live-service games but plans to release 10 by March 2026. They likely include Bungie's "Project Matter," an upcoming Last of Us multiplayer game, a rumored Horizon Zero Dawn multiplayer title, and other Deviation Games and Haven Studios projects.

Hulst told Axios this week that sales of Sony's PC games have helped it keep investing in its ever-more expensive blockbuster productions. He confirmed to Reuters that the company plans to increase its PC and mobile gaming footprints. However, delaying PC ports makes sense if Sony leverages flagship games to sell PlayStations. Live-service titles, in contrast, benefit from quickly building large numbers of players, which is easier on two platforms instead of one.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/96202-sony-wait-least-year-port-most-playstation-exclusives.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Certainly not a smart business move .....

 

[m4a4]

Just makes them look short-sighted, or just greedy (for blatantly trying to double-dip).

IMO, asking full price a year later for a port just looks bad (porting takes a fraction of the resources). At least a simultaneous launch justifies it in my mind...

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Well Ragnarok by Xmas 2023 sounds pretty nice.

 

[psycros]

Just makes them look short-sighted, or just greedy (for blatantly trying to double-dip).

IMO, asking full price a year later for a port just looks bad (porting takes a fraction of the resources). At least a simultaneous launch justifies it in my mind...

Yeah, six months seems more reasonable to me. And its certainly possible for an experienced team to port something in that time.

 

[NintPlayBox]

Remember when PlayStation games used to take years to be on PC?...now it's a matter of months and even sooner as we can see with some titles like TLOU remake.

 

[ZackL04]

Why bother with creating multiplayer spin off games?

Seems like a huge waste of resources

 

[punctualturn]

Ah Sony, like nvidia, always pushing anticonsumer moves but for some weird reasons, their cult members are ok with that and keep giving them money.

Really love sony double standards, b!tch!ng about MS buying activision because it limits consumers choices yet they are the masters of limiting consumers choices.

 

[dangh]

I'm absolutely fine with that. Sony needs to make money to continue release one of best games around, and they make most money from a console. There have to be some need for people to buy PS5 over PC, otherwise their console sales would fall down, greatly reduce income from 3rd party publishers. And if that happens, then Sony would go down, or it will have to deliver same unfinished, unpolished, unoriginal titles with a lot of MT as many other publishers.
I'm happy to pay for that quality, and there is nothing anti-consumer in that approach. Their games do not limit competition, are as good to play a year after release as at release day (often better), pushing accessibility options for wider audience which is being followed by others, and constantly deliver top level story and gameplay.
Trying to compare this to nVidia (which actively makes deals to limit competition by pushing their closed software and hardware approach to games and devices, not supporting older cards as soon as they do a small switch (AMD with FSR supports better old nVidia cards than actual nVidia with their dlss), and deliver less and less improvements for much more money each generation) makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Chuck95]

Certainly not a smart business move .....

Certainly a very smart business move