this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2026
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The full article that was hinted at in interviews last week.

There are likely a few reasons behind this shift. One is that several recent PlayStation games have not sold well on PC.

Interesting...

But the strategy has been muddled and confused many players. Most PC releases arrived months or years after the games came to PlayStation. The cadence was never consistent, and the announcements appeared to be haphazard. The company also upset PC players by asking them to create PlayStation Network accounts to access many of the games.

I love Horizon: Zero Dawn. I have not played Horizon: Forbidden West. By the time it came to PC, Sony started making PSN logins necessary to even authenticate the game in the first place, which is basically just the worst kind of DRM. They've reverted this policy, but now I don't trust them. They put out a handful of games on GOG where I don't have to trust them, and I'll probably still pick a few of those up one day, but Forbidden West isn't there. Seems to me that they have no idea how badly they screwed up this rollout themselves. Oh, Uncharted 4 didn't do too well on PC? Where are the PC versions of Uncharted 1-3? Where can I play the original God of War trilogy? I'm not buying a PlayStation no matter how many exclusives you lock up there, so I'll just continue to not play your handful of exclusives.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

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[–] commander@lemmy.world 1 point 19 minutes ago

That's not going to get me to buy a PS6. PS5 is at least my only (UHD) Blu-ray player that I rarely ever play games on. Not buying another PlayStation in the future for not even averaging 1 exclusive game a year that I'd want to play

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 1 point 28 minutes ago

I’ve bought almost everything they’ve released. The one major exception is Stellar Blade, which they infected with Denuvo malware. By the time they remove the malware — if they ever remove the malware — the amount I will be willing to pay is far less than what they asked for. Maybe $20 if I’m bored. Fuck Sony.

[–] chris@l.roofo.cc 2 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

A bit sad for me that I won't be playing the next Horizon game. Oh well. Enough other games to play. Maybe I'll buy the latest god of war game if the price comes down enough. I'm patient.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 1 point 31 minutes ago

You do not need to feel bad. The next Horizon game is a live service grift.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 hours ago (1 child)

Leadership is out of touch with the market/reality.

First, hardware costs are going way up. People will be less likely to buy multiple hardware platforms to play your exclusive games.

Second, I'm not buying a PS4 or 5 or 6 just to play Bloodborne. Literally the only reason I care about this.

But that's okay, there's plenty of other things to play and it's only getting better behind an emulator so you may lose a purchase there.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 point 42 minutes ago

Corporate suits love ignoring player feedback and telling people they're wrong.

No, we're goddamn sick of enshittification and would rather PlayStation failed than give into it.

[–] nick_ocb@lemmy.world 12 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

Sony's PC pivot reversal is a bold bet. They've spent years building PC goodwill—abandoning it suggests they're seeing data we don't.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 5 points 4 hours ago

From one of the other articles about this I read, they are seeing the same data but interpreting dumbly. They aren't seeing the kind of explosive sales they want during the period the games are locked to the Playstation and it doesn't pick up after they release it to other platforms because the hype train has halted by then.

Why they think just dropping other platforms will help more than simultaneously releasing them everywhere is pretty silly when that is their reasoning.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago

I would have purchased and played Sony games on Steam, if they did not require a Playstation account.

[–] Nilz@sopuli.xyz 63 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

I understand porting costs money but they kept selling old games for new game prices.

[–] who@feddit.org 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

And at least some of their flagship games were ported to PC by a developer that didn't bother with optimization, leading to ridiculously high system requirements, so only a fraction of PC gamers would reasonably be able play them. (I'm looking at you, The Last of Us.)

High prices, late releases, badly performing ports, forced online accounts... Each of these mistakes is a slap in a potential customer's face. Together, they practically guarantee poor sales.

Maybe they think recent RAM and GPU prices will lead many PC gamers to start buying Playstations? I doubt it.

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 48 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah, Sony is baffled why the people willing to wait over 2 years for the game to come to PC are choosing to wait some more to get it cheaper instead of buying it at full price.

Then scratch their heads when Helldivers 2 releases at the same time as the PS5 and PC outsells the PS5

Helldivers 2 has sold 12 million copies on Steam alone, while PlayStation 5 sales are estimated at 5 million units.

https://tech4gamers.com/helldivers-2-sold-more-on-pc-than-ps5/

And Sony's response is to continue to delay for years before releasing to PC expecting PC gamers to have the same enthusiasm for a release years later as they would a day 1 launch.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago

We'll see this again when Marvel Tokon comes out.

[–] darkkite@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 hours ago

They will continue to release multiplayer games on pc so it will be the "best of both worlds" for sony

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 12 points 8 hours ago

Yeah, if they already made me wait past GOTY podcast spoiler season, I'm far less willing to pay full price for it anymore.

[–] THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 23 points 8 hours ago

This is why Xbox dying is a bad thing.

[–] mrmaplebar@fedia.io 6 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

I think they're finally worried about Valve and Steam.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 6 points 4 hours ago (2 children)
[–] mrmaplebar@fedia.io 5 points 3 hours ago

Every game they release on Steam is adding value to Valve's hardware. It's fundamentally not that different to Sony releasing games on the Xbox or Switch.

Potentially good for software sales, but a death sentence for future hardware sales that rely on exclusivity to justify the platform's existence.

[–] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago

That Steam is actually a competitor to Playstation. Even more so with the Steam Deck and future Steam Machine in living room. It's no longer this "oh it's PC, a different audience".

[–] Sunschein@piefed.social 2 points 4 hours ago

I'm going to cry if I don't get to play Wolverine, or the upcoming X-Men game after that. Still won't buy a console, though.

[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 40 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

It was too little, too late, too expensive. Logically it would sell less than expected after a lame attempt.

[–] 64bithero@lemmy.world 15 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

Gamers are being shown more then ever their buying older games not newest ones. Part of this is the eshitification of the industry.

The problem is the ports a lot of the time are awful.

[–] albbi@piefed.ca 8 points 8 hours ago

Partly because newly released games are buggy and unfinished and they can take a while before they're stable and quality of life features fully in place.

I don't want to pay to be a beta tester, and I especially don't want to pay full price for that. I can wait a bit and get a better game for cheaper.

I've only bought a couple of games on early release or at release lately. Deep Rock Galactic Survivor because it had a demo I enjoyed, and Hades 2 because I trust that studio and Hades is one of my favourite games.

[–] mintiefresh@piefed.social 30 points 8 hours ago

I'll never buy a PlayStation. So I will just not play their games or will play them if they come to PC. That's it.

[–] RamRabbit@lemmy.world 25 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Uncharted 4 didn’t do too well on PC? Where are the PC versions of Uncharted 1-3

Release of 4 could have pushed a bunch of sales on a 1-3 PC collection as well! Release them at the same time, put the 1-3 collection on a discount and charge full price for 4. People will gobble up both. (I would put 4 on my wish list and buy the 1-3 collection in that situation, but that is still me giving them money for a two-decade-old game.)

[–] hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

I bought 4 cause its called legacy of thieves collection, so I thought it was going to be you know a collection of the whole series. Instead its just 4 and some DLC.

[–] albbi@piefed.ca 6 points 8 hours ago

I'd do the same...

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 21 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

I still don't know why they sell one Uncharted game on Steam under the name "Uncharted Collection". It's just one game and some DLC.

[–] hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago

I was conned by this.

[–] BallShapedMan@lemmy.world 19 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

As a PC player my rule of thumb is there has to be at least 10 great games on a console before I buy a console. I owned a PS4 because it crossed the threshold before they started releasing the games on PC.

Just one or two games on my wishlist for the PS5, at this rate I'll never buy one.

My guess is maybe they saw reduced console sales for folks like me?

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 8 points 8 hours ago (1 child)

I also had the 10 exclusive too for consoles, which is why I got the PS3 and PS4 Pro. PS5 doesn't meet it because they blew it on their live service attempts and it is crazy Naughty Dog has released nothing new that isn't a remake this gen.

I don't think I'll get another Sony console again even if they never port to PC except for jailbroken ones going forward.

[–] BallShapedMan@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

That's probably where I am too.

And with news on Xbox being AI trash possibly... Consoles may be dead.

[–] brillotti@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

They would make so much money if they ported Bloodborne.

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[–] Taco2112@lemmy.world 12 points 8 hours ago

Ah, the Sony flip flop on exclusivity continues.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Destiny is on life support, Hunters Gathering is dead on arrival, Marathon's future is bleak, Concord is Concord, and the one studio that could've printed them easy money is dead because the sorry excuse of a circus that is Sony leadership really wanted a live service God Of War title. Gee, I wonder why sales are low.

[–] mrfriki@lemmy.world 9 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

They won't sell more consoles because of this decision and they won't get the PC money either. As for me, I'm fine with it. Better developers and published have fallen so far and yet we still have great games to play.

[–] Eggyhead@lemmings.world 4 points 7 hours ago

I think this is more about user retention than additional sales. In a world where PC players stay on PC and console players stay on console, porting games to PC makes sense. However, with Steam OS making things easy and Microsoft’s plans for making the next Xbox a consoled-PC, there’s a much higher risk of PS players migrating to PC -particularly if their favorite exclusives are landing there anyway. And of course there’s no indication that PC players will ever invest in a console unless there are exclusives.

Furthermore, with rising costs of computer parts, Sony might have to subsidize their hardware a little bit more than they’re comfortable with, and that means they need players in their store buying games and not buying games from Steam.

And finally, it’s worth mentioning that Sony fumbled bad with first party games this gen, meaning the PS5’s success has been carried solely on the backs of 3rd parties. If PS players were to buy a Steam Machine, they would have almost no reason to ever buy a PS again unless Sony starts giving them a reason to.

So as much as it disgruntles all of us to not be able to buy all our games exactly where we want, it’s probably a smarter investment for Sony as a video game company to not be porting their games to PC.

[–] popcar2@piefed.ca 4 points 8 hours ago

That's really disappointing, I was looking forward to the Returnal sequel and that Wolverine game.

[–] 64bithero@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 child)

Putting games on PC works for third party publishers because it works perfectly with their business model. It works for Microsoft because they whole sale lost the console market and are slowly slinking their way out. Sony is still a huge contender in the console space and has no plans to cede any share. While it’s great for the consumer to have PC releases it hurts the console business. Regardless if you have a small sect of people who would never buy a console to begin with. For me I own a ps5 as well as a PC. I am more likely to buy the game on PC. Sony from there loses out on the maximum cut they could get from the game. They lose out on me needed to have ps plus to play online. Not to mention if the ps6 does cost close to the same as a PC having games on both leaves little incentive to buy the console.

I am not to mad about it, I rarely play my PS5 now I’ll have more incentive to buy the games knowing I won’t get a PC release.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 9 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

During the PS2 era, there were lots of reasons that a game might end up exclusive to one platform even if there was no deal involved. Now the only exclusives are the ones Sony makes themselves, so there's maybe one or two of those per year, and that doesn't guarantee that those one or two are going to be your cup of tea, let alone justify buying a dedicated machine for $500 just to play those few games. As opposed to a PC that plays every video game that isn't made by Sony or Nintendo. It gets harder and harder for that $500 to make sense, and the PC ports Sony had been doing was any attempt at all to recoup the money that they spent on blockbuster games that weren't growing their console install base.

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