PlayStation has announced that it will no longer port its single-player, first-party PS5 games to PC, keeping them exclusive to the PS5. This was announced in early March, and the shocking news received a wide variety of reactions from many people. PlayStation said that starting soon, they will end PC single-player, first-party games for PS5, starting with Insomniac’s Wolverine, which is scheduled to release in September. It’s important to note that this change will only affect their future single-player game, and not future multiplayer live-service games, due to those games needing as high a player count as possible. PlayStation began porting its big single-player games in 2020, with Horizon Zero Dawn. Ever since then, they have made PC ports for nearly every one of their biggest franchises, such as God of War, The Last of Us, Marvel’s Spiderman, and Ghost of Tsushima. But now, the company is changing its mind and ending PC ports for these types of games and franchises.
PlayStation has made this decision for two main reasons. The first being that PlayStation exclusives don’t sell that well on PC. When a PlayStation exclusive is brought to Steam, it happens around a year or two after the game’s initial release on PlayStation consoles. This leads to the game not selling well on PC, as many people have already bought the game on a PlayStation console, and the only people buying it on Steam are people who only have a PC. In contrast, Xbox often releases its games on all platforms day one, both on console and PC, leading to higher PC sales.
A bigger and more prominent reason is PlayStation’s desire to sell PS5s. The biggest reason people buy a console is the exclusives that are on that console. And for a long time, PlayStation has been highly successful due to its incredible exclusives, making nearly all of its consoles sell extremely well. But the more you give your games to other platforms, like Steam, the less people might want to buy a PS5, which lowers console sales. Take Xbox, for example, as in the past decade, they’ve focused way less on pushing console sales and making exclusive games, and focused more on increasing accessibility for their games, and pushing for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. As a result, Xbox doesn’t have very high console sales. On the other hand, Nintendo has been holding tightly onto its exclusives for decades, and as a result, it still has incredible console sales. And the announcement of the Steam Machine and next Xbox gave PlayStation even more reason to end PC ports. The Steam Machine will be a console-PC hybrid, allowing one to connect it to their TV and access Steam on it. And the next Xbox console has been confirmed to use Windows, also allowing people to access their Steam accounts on it. This means that people would be able to play PlayStation exclusives on these other consoles.
Many people are divided on the PlayStation’s decision. Some people believe PlayStation was justified in ending PC ports, and they should focus on keeping their exclusive games to themselves, similar to what Nintendo is doing. While other people are saying PlayStation should focus less on console sales and more on making their games as accessible as possible, similar to what Xbox is doing. In my opinion, I side more with the first opinion. I can see why PlayStation chose to end PC ports, and why they should prioritize console sales in the coming years. With the increase in RAM prices, an essential piece of hardware for consoles, and the growing competition in the console market, PlayStation needs to do all it can to get its consoles to sell. While PlayStation’s decision might be unfortunate for people who don’t own a PlayStation console and can’t play PlayStation exclusives, it does seem necessary to make sure they receive enough revenue to fund their future games and projects.
