Until the PlayStation 5 era, Sony’s strategy was focused on delivering first-party games that stayed on the console to drive hardware sales. However, in a new interview with Back Pocket conducted during ALT. Games, where he also detailed how his 11-year PlayStation Studios run ended with Jim Ryan firing him, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida revealed that the change in strategy was essentially forced by increasing AAA budgets, and actually helped the development of all first-party titles.
“When I was working on the game development side, first-party at PlayStation, from the strategy standpoint, we are not allowed to bring our triple A games to other platform like PC,” Yoshida admitted.
As production costs increased over the last five years, the exclusive-only model became unsustainable. According to Yoshida, the scale of investment in modern titles grew so large that publishers realized the console install base alone could no longer support the risk. “Releasing games on PC after a couple years must have helped recoup the investment of these big budget games and helped the team and the company to reinvest that money into their new games,” he noted.
While some hardware purists argue that PC ports devalue the PlayStation brand, Yoshida dismissed these concerns as the complaints of a vocal minority. “I do not think that really affected the adoption of PlayStation hardware like PS5 in any way,” he said.
As releasing PlayStation first-party games on PC essentially became a necessity (although gamers still continue to purchase consoles for their exclusives), the rumored pivot back to console-exclusive games sounds risky. “I'm not seeing any proof of them changing their strategy this generation. But, if they are changing, it's going to be interesting how they are able to maintain the investment on the big-budget games on first-party side going forward,” Yoshida-san said.
With development costs likely not getting any smaller for the next generation of consoles, such as the PlayStation 6, it will be very interesting to see whether first-party titles will be affected by Sony's rumored return to console exclusives, as Yoshida-san suggested. Games like Ghost of Yotei and the soon-to-be-released Saros, both with no PC port in sight, seem to have been unaffected in terms of scope for their respective genre, but it remains to be seen how these ballooning development budgets will be managed alongside players' expectations and the extra revenue PC ports bring.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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