It was a big deal when Sony followed Microsoft's stance on first-party console exclusives and started porting its widely acclaimed PlayStation masterpieces to PC.
Everything began in 2020 when Guerrilla Games announced it would release its highly successful new IP, Horizon Zero Dawn, on Steam. That happened over three years after the PlayStation 4 debut, but the game still sold very well on the platform, despite having some performance issues at launch. 2021 delivered Bend Studio's underrated Days Gone, but it also brought acclaimed PC porting studio Nixxes into the PlayStation fold following Sony's acquisition of the Dutch company. In 2022, the PlayStation PC port machine ramped up massively when Sony released Santa Monica's God of War, Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered and Miles Morales, Naughty Dog's Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, and Sumo Digital's Sackboy: A Big Adventure.
Meanwhile, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan was more than happy to report exponential growth thanks to the new PC strategy. At the same time, Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst said that single player PlayStation exclusives would still be released a year in advance on consoles, while it made sense to launch live service games day and date on both PC and console to maximize the user base from the start.
However, in a new interview published yesterday by GamesIndustry.biz, Hulst appeared to walk back that promise, saying that releasing on PC is a great option but one that will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
We have made significant progress delivering games on PC in recent years, so where it makes sense for the game and the studio, it's a great option to have. But it's a decision that we will make for each individual game.
It sounds like a partial turnaround, though the extent of it remains to be seen. The two PlayStation games ported to PC this year, Returnal and The Last of Us Part I, suffered underwhelming launches caused by poor performance. However, the developers improved the situation with a series of patches.
As a reminder, live service games are a big part of Sony's future strategy for PlayStation, be it on console or PC. Roughly fifteen months ago, the Japanese company confirmed its plans to launch ten such games by March 2026.
The first to be released should be Naughty Dog's The Last of Us standalone multiplayer game, which is due for a full reveal later this year. Then we have games from Firewalk, Haven, Deviation, Insomniac, Guerrilla (a Horizon online project), FireSprite, and London Studio. Of course, there's also Bungie, which plans to release its long-awaited new IP by 2025.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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