Most PlayStation exclusives won't be released on PC on launch day because the publisher thinks PC gamers will buy a PS5 for upcoming exclusive sequels after playing the originals on their personal computer, which might be underestimating that crowd's patience a tad.
PlayStation has been bringing several of its biggest exclusives to PC years after their initial release, with the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn, Marvel's Spider-Man, God of War, and much more making the transition. PlayStation has now officially explained what we all expected: this strategy is a bid to court PC gamers over to PS5, using exclusive sequels like God of War Ragnarok and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 as bait.
"Indeed, we are bringing our titles to the PC platform and we have a dual approach here," PlayStation's newly appointed co-CEO Hermen Hulst explained at Sony's Business Segment Meeting 2024. Hulst added that live service games, such as Helldivers 2, will come to both PC and PS5 at launch, but the company's "tentpole titles" - the cinematic, singleplayer action-adventures that dominated the PS4's exclusive output - will still see staggered releases on PC.
"We're finding new audiences that are potentially going to be very interested in playing sequels on the PlayStation platform," he continued. "We have high hopes that we're actually able to bring new players into PlayStation at large but into PlayStation platforms specifically - actually, the same goals for the work that we do with extending our great properties onto other media such as television series and film, for example, as you have seen with the Last of Us on HBO or Gran Turismo the film."
Hulst's thinking makes logical sense, but he's also dealing with a crowd that largely held off on buying the Kingdom Hearts games for three whole years when they were locked behind the Epic Games Store. I'm sure some PC players will in fact drop $500 to play the inevitable Ghost of Tsushima 2 early, for instance, after enjoying the first samurai romp's port. But expecting that en masse might be a slight miscalculation, especially since this strategy is now out in the open.
God of War Ragnarok is reportedly the next exclusive migrating to the platform, and we might hear more about the port at PlayStation's State of Play show airing later today.
PS5 is Sony’s most profitable console generation ever after just three years, beating PS4 by over $36 billion in sales.
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Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor
Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.
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