The Less Said, the Better It Seems as Sony Continues to Remove Wording of PC Ports in Documents and Public Statements

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By Peter Brosdahl

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Image: Sony

Sony continues to publicly dodge direct answers regarding future PC ports but has gone so far as to remove language regarding them from its latest financials. Over the weekend, a new annual report was filed with the U.S. Security Exchange Commission, and something different with this one was noticed. According to Game File (via VGC), Sony had removed wording present in last year’s report regarding PC ports. As the expression goes, the devil’s in the details, and there’s one inconspicuously missing in the 379-page report.

Last year, Sony had stated that “plans to continue its efforts to deploy its first-party titles to multiple platforms such as PC,” but that line is nowhere to be seen in the latest report. What’s more is that PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino posted on social media that while Sony has not outright completely abandoned porting games to PC, it has, however, begun a new strategy moving forward.

“At this time our main policy is, for first party developed single-player games to further refine the value of the gaming experience we can offer on PlayStation, meanwhile, we believe it’s important for live service games to be played by as many people as possible through online multiplayer, so we will continue to release on PS5 and PC platforms as a basis.”

– Hideaki Nishino, PlayStation CEO

So, based on an email sent last month by CEO Hermen Hulst to staff indicating that single-player games would not make their way to PC moving forward, Sony has doubled down on this with a similar confirmation from another exec. Both Sony and Microsoft have revived the console war strategy of single-player game exclusives to maximize their hardware sales. Each has also said that it will continue to offer multiplayer titles across multiple platforms.

“Regardless of the platform, we will make decisions based on our desire to deliver the best possible gameplay experience that maximizes each title’s unique features.”

– Hideaki Nishino, PlayStation CEO

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igor_kavinski 👍 1

I just don't see how they can ignore the extra income from a PC port like, say, after two years of exclusivity. Especially since the fps can be maxed out on the PC platform and a more higher end experience would propel gamers to spend $60 on it. I think at the moment they are doing this purely so they can get as many people to buy PS6 as possible, thinking that it will be the only way to get AAA console single player experiences going forward. Once they have fooled enough people into buying the nextgen console, they will turn around and start porting their games (or just releasing because they can do the porting in stealth mode in the background).

Peter Brosdahl
As a child of the 70’s I was part of the many who became enthralled by the video arcade invasion of the 1980’s. Saving money from various odd jobs I purchased my first computer from a friend of my dad, a used Atari 400, around 1982. Eventually it would end up being a lifelong passion of upgrading and modifying equipment that, of course, led into a career in IT support.

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