Recent reports have indicated that Sony might be pulling back on its plans to release its first-party single-player games on PC as well as PS5. The reports at the time noted that there was a concern at the company about PC releases not converting into audiences then buying new PlayStation consoles. Former Sony Interactive Entertainment executive Shuhei Yoshida, however, believes that PC ports didn’t hurt sales of the PS5.
Speaking to Back Pocket during the ALT:GAMES festival in Australia, he noted that his tenure as president of Worldwide Studios was marked by the company not allowing any first-party PlayStation game to be released on other platforms. However, with the rise of development costs, keeping games exclusive to a single platform started feeling unsustainable. By releasing games on PC some time after their original console release, the company could then make some extra money from big-budget games, which could then be used to fund future projects.
“Releasing games on PC after a couple years must have helped recoup the investment of these big-budget games and helped the team and the company to reinvest that money into their new games,” he said.
Yoshida went on to note that the idea that PC ports of PlayStation games lower the value of the PlayStation brand comes from a vocal minority. “I do not think that really affected the adoption of PlayStation hardware like PS5 in any way,” he said.
At the same event, Yoshida had also discussed the events leading up to his leaving his role as president of Worldwide Studios and going on to head up PlayStation’s indie development support department, which largely came down to his not listening to the at-the-time CEO of SIE, Jim Ryan.
“I helped Santa Monica to make God of War, Naughty Dog to make Uncharted and The Last of Us, and Sucker Punch to make the beautiful Ghost of Tsushima,” explained Yoshida. “Ghost of Tsushima was one of the last games that I worked on as the president of Worldwide Studios.”
“But in 2019, after 11 years leading the first-party development, I was fired from the role. Jim Ryan wanted to remove me from first-party because I didn’t listen to him. He asked to do some ridiculous things, and I said ‘No.’”
It is worth noting that Sony has yet to make an official announcement regarding its future plans for PC as a target platform. Previous reports had indicated that Sucker Punch Productions’ most recent open-world outing, Ghost of Yōtei, was originally going to get a PC release before plans changed. There was reportedly also a “faction within PlayStation” that didn’t want to bring first-party games to PC to begin with. An official announcement is rumored to happen “at some point”.
What this means for games going forward remains unknown. Saros, for example, is coming out later this month and is expected to remain exclusive to PS5. Later this year, we will also see the release of Marvel’s Wolverine, and whether it will remain exclusive to Sony’s console or will eventually make its way to PC like Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man series also remains to be seen.
