While the last few years have seen Sony embracing PC as a platform for the release of its single-player games, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier believes that the company might be looking to revert this decision. He spoke about this possibility on a recent episode of the Triple Click podcast. However, he went on to note that the company seemingly still plans to release live-service games on PC to capture as wide of an audience as possible.
“I think for them, their strategy is like, live service games are coming to PC,” he said. “But I think the sense I’m getting is that they’re backing away from putting their exclusive console stuff like traditional single-player stuff on PC.” Bringing up the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine, Schreier noted that Sony seems to have no plans to bring it to PC. “I mean even if they don’t, we are seeing Wolverine is coming on September 15th, and that’s not coming to PC. It’s coming to PlayStation 5 only,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it never came to PC, but even if it does you have a strong idea of what that is and that you need a PlayStation to play it at least for the indefinite future.”
Responding to questions about it simply being speculation on the ResetEra forums, Schreier offered some clarification. He said that while he hasn’t quite been ready to publish a whole story about Sony’s pull back from multiplatform releases for its single-player games just yet, more details will be coming soon.
“I mean, it’s not speculation, but sometimes topics come up on the show before I’m quite ready to publish a story about them. More to come soon I’m sure.”
Interestingly, John Linneman of Digital Foundry had expressed a similar belief. In a recent Q&A video, the hosts of Digital Foundry discussed Sony’s PC ports, and how the company has missed quite a few opportunities since the PS5’s launch, including Demon’s Souls and Gran Turismo 7. “I have an inkling that [Sony is] pulling away from PC,” said Linneman.
It is worth noting that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is the only recent single-player PS5 game that has been confirmed to be getting a PC release. However, Kojima Productions isn’t exactly a first-party developer under the PlayStation Studios banner. Whether or not Ghost of Yōtei gets a PC release will likely be a bigger indicator for Sony’s plans for the platform moving forward.
On the multiplayer side of things, the company has seen quite a bit of success with Helldivers 2. Looking forward, it is likely looking to do the same with the co-op focused Horizon Hunters Gathering, which was unveiled earlier this month. The title is slated to hit PC and PS5 on the same day, complete with cross-platform multiplayer and cross-progression.
While Horizon Hunters Gathering doesn’t yet have a release date, Guerrilla Games has noted that it will return to making single-player Horizon games in the future. Rumors have indicated that a Horizon 3 is still a long time away, however.
