It’s a turnaround that could redefine PlayStation’s strategy: according to Jez Cordon, journalist at Windows Central, Sony is considering partially withdrawing from the PC market, at least for its major single-player titles. This information was shared during the last episode of the podcast Xbox Twowhere Cordon claims to rely on “a very reliable source”.
In this same intervention, he specifies that the elements recently spotted concerning cross-purchase compatibility between the PS5 and the PC would ultimately only be abandoned vestiges of a previous project. “The cross-buy buttons and PlayStation/PC iconography would come from old, outdated versions and would never be used,” he explains.
Sales too low to justify the effort?
In recent years, Sony has nevertheless multiplied the ports of its great successes on PC: God of War, Days Gone, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Manamong others. But the commercial impact would have remained limited, according to Cordon, who puts forward a simple cause: “the games simply did not sell well, in particular because they were released too late”.
Unlike Microsoft, which is banking on a simultaneous console/PC release for its Xbox titles, Sony has until now favored a delay of several months, or even years, between the PlayStation release and the PC port. A strategy which did not convince the target audience.
Cordon suggests that Sony is preparing to adopt a more selective policy: “PlayStation would probably withdraw from the PC market,” he says, while specifying that he does not follow PlayStation news closely, but that he sometimes obtains reliable information in connection with his research on Microsoft.
Only game services would remain multiplatform
If narrative games would now be reserved for the PlayStation ecosystem, live-service games would continue to be published simultaneously on PS5 and PC. The objective would be clear: preserve single-player exclusives as Nintendo does, while capitalizing on the profitability of multiplatform game services.
Cordon takes the example of the game Yoteirecently mentioned as a potential long-term, even permanent console exclusive. This new direction could mark a clear break with the expansion strategy initiated by Sony since 2020.