A new report has stated that both Ghost of Yotei, as well as the upcoming roguelike Saros, will remain as PlayStation 5 Exclusives as the company moves away from porting titles to PC, as was done with the previous games in both series. Bloomberg has stated that while Sony plans to continue releasing online games, such as the upcoming Marathon on PC, single-player titles will now remain exclusive to their console.
Sony had previously had a policy of releasing these games on PC only after a period of time had passed. This policy would see a shift back for the studio, something that stands in stark contrast to their primary competitor, Microsoft, which now develops its first-party titles as multiplatform games.
This doesn’t mean that every title that releases as a PlayStation 5 exclusive will skip PC. For instance, Death Stranding 2: On The Beach is set to hit PC this month, but probably would have anyway, given that Kojima Productions owns the rights, with Sony only serving as producer. This goes for titles like upcoming Kena: Scars of Kosmora and Marvel Tokon, which will also be free for release on PC. Plans for a Ghost of Yotei port, Sucker Punch’s 2025 samurai epic, were recently scrapped, a representative for Bungie stated.
Bloomberg stated that poor recent sales of Sony’s PC releases, risk to the PlayStation brand, and the potential impact on both PlayStation 5 and the eventual PlayStation 6 sales are contributing factors regarding this shift in policy. Another factor that played a role in this is the next rumored Xbox console, which is rumored to play PC titles, as well as have Steam available on it, might have also encouraged this move.
Sony has emphasized its primary platform with all first-party releases, never going as far as Microsoft, which now releases day and date between the Xbox, PC, and sometimes even PlayStation. When it comes to multiplayer games, however, Sony has been willing to release them day and date, and an approach unlikely to change given the massive success of Helldivers 2.
This news also comes amid rumors that Sony intends to delay their next console to 2028, or potentially even 2029, as a result of the AI-fueled chip crisis. David Gibson, a senior analyst at MST International, stated: “Rising memory prices will not impact short-term performance thanks to Sony’s existing inventory.” He went on to say the increased memory costs could start becoming a problem for Sony in their next fiscal year and that “Sony might pass future cost increases onto consumers.”
This strategy shift, at least from Sony’s point of view, could be a shifting of the brand’s value back to consoles in hopes of building more loyalty from consumers to weather that impending storm. This shift could create a problem for Nixxes Software, which Sony acquired in 2021, and built their reputation as a PC port specialist studio, acquired for that reason. Last month, Sony closed Bluepoint Games, which, at the behest of Sony, had been developing a God of War live service game until January of 2025.
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