PlayStation’s bigwigs are content to stick with their current approach to multiplatform releases for now, making it unlikely we’re going to see a sudden switch to day-and-date PC ports of Sony’s big single-player games anytime soon.
SlayPtation have been bringing their studios’ multiplayer and live-service games to PC at release for a while now, it making sense with the likes of Helldivers 2 and, er, Concord, to try and ensure the maximum potential player base possible right out of the gate. On the other hand, for single player stuff like God of War Ragnarok and Ghost of Tsushima they’ve been content to wait a year to bring over to the other video game boxes.
Based on what PlayStation’s studio business group boss Hermen Hulst said at a Sony corporate meeting today, the console makers are happy to zig where their rivals at Xbox are zagging, and keep big single-player exclusives as exclusives for that year, in order to try and keep player stock in the PS5 as high as possible.
“Particularly on the single-player side, our tentpole titles, they’re such a differentiator,” the exec re-iterated (thanks, VGC), “The point of differentiation, I should say, for the PlayStation console, is that they will showcase the performance and the quality of the hardware. So we want to ensure that players get the best experience from these titles. We’re very thoughtful about how and if and how we bring these titles to other platforms.”
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino toed the same line, emphasising when asked about Xbox’s approach that PlayStation will stay alert and listen to players to “ensure that we serve them appropriately”, which is the most corporate guy combo of words I’ve read this week.
The bit about listening to players is interesting given the negative reputation PlayStation’s earned itself with the communities of games like Helldivers 2 due to its handling of mandatory PSN account linking and its effect on PC gamers in regions where PSN doesn’t operate.
But, you can see the logic in keeping on keeping on for the console makers, even if it means time twiddling thumbs for us folks with our big computers.
