If you were hoping PlayStation would reverse course and launch its games on PC sooner than months or even years later, keep on that hopium. The company recently said it will continue to “stagger” exclusive releases on other platforms.
In an interview with Famitsu (that was translated by IGN Japan), Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and President Jim Ryan said the current strategy of releasing PlayStation games on PC has been working fine. He explained that because fans find the timeline “acceptable,” there’s no need to drop an exclusive on PC the same day it hits PlayStation.
“We also fully understand the importance of PS5 exclusive titles,” Ryan said. “As I mentioned earlier, PlayStation Studios’ main responsibility is to make games for the latest PlayStation hardware that players will enjoy. We are increasing the number of PS5 exclusive games, and staggering the release of the PC versions. I often have the opportunity to ask game fans for their opinions, and when I ask them how they feel about the time lag, they often say they feel the release of a PC version two or three years after the release of the PlayStation version is acceptable.”
Ryan’s statements echo something similar he said in March 2022 about adding PlayStation exclusives to PS Plus the same day they launch normally, a move that would mimic Microsoft’s strategy with Xbox Game Pass. He spoke of this “virtuous cycle” the company doesn’t want to break, in which Sony invests in its first-party studios’ success, which then enables more investments that later turn into more success. For some reason, by either putting games on Sony’s platform-exclusive subscription service or porting them to another console—like PC—Ryan believes this tactic would diminish the quality of marquee PlayStation games.
While it’s no secret that some PlayStation games have struggled to make the jump to PC (Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us Part 1 was riddled with copious performance issues when it landed on Steam this past March), other games—including Bend Studio’s Days Gone, Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn, and Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man—were pretty successful PC ports. So, it’s baffling to me that Ryan is so wary about putting PlayStation games on other platforms, particularly when they have extremely positive reviews on Steam.
Kotaku reached out to Sony for comment.
Sony has had a few PlayStation exclusives that have come out in the past year from God of War Ragnarök to Horizon Forbidden West. It’s unclear when these will hit PC, though you’re likely waiting a little while longer before that happens. The next PlayStation exclusive, Final Fantasy XVI, was seemingly planned to launch on PC, but any mention of that platform has been scrubbed from recent marketing materials. Either way, there’s a long road ahead for PC folks dying to play Sony’s upcoming games on something other than a PlayStation 4 or 5.