It’s been fascinating to see how observers, many of whom were convinced something like this would never happen, have gradually adjusted their expectations and stances to allow for these developments. Originally, as mentioned, it was believed something like this would never happen; Detroit coming to PC was more because Sony had terminated its relationship with Quantic Dream, surely, and the IP no longer held any value to them. Death Stranding coming to PC was surely because Sony and Kojima enjoyed a special relationship. Horizon Zero Dawn coming to PC was surely because the Decimal Engine had already been ported to PC for Death Stranding, so why not? Days Gone coming to PC was probably because it had flopped, so why not make money out of it? Just a few months ago, a lot of PlayStation fans had formally adjusted these expectations to, well, Sony will probably port smaller to mid tier IP to PC, but flagship stuff, such as God of War, will never come to PC. As of right now, they are at the point where they think PS4 games may get ported to PC, but PS5 ones won’t; which, going by the aforementioned SteamDB and Nvidia leaks, means they are in for another round of expectations adjustment in the relatively short term future.

The point of this isn’t exactly to gloat, but to thoroughly establish that Sony games are coming to PC. That is a fact, a reality. Sony has slowly been working up to this – more and more major first party titles are coming to the platform, it has acquired a whole developer to help with the process, it has created a whole publishing label to help with the process, and yes, based on leaks, there’s a lot more coming in the near future. The question is no longer if a PlayStation first party title will come to PC – the question is, when?

The “when” question is significant, because of the counterpoint posed by PlayStation’s biggest competition in the console market, Xbox. You see, a few years ago, Xbox made a really bold commitment – every single Xbox Game Studios game would come to PC going forward. Day and date. At launch. Effectively, this would mean that Xbox would have no true exclusives, all its games would be shared at the very least with PC. It flew in the face of 30 years of understanding and history of the workings of the console market. It was believed that consoles sold primarily on the back of their software – and if there was no appealing software to buy them for, because you could get that appealing software elsewhere, then why bother spending money on a proprietary, bespoke closed system?

But Xbox head Phil Spencer had a different understanding of things. What he felt was that consoles and PCs were differentiated enough, and each offered enough distinct advantages, that each would have its own market appeal inherently. Meaning that by offering games across two different kinds of platforms, Spencer felt he wasn’t cutting his products’ market appeal – he was expanding it. The Xbox was no longer the product, it was one of the delivery methods for the product, which were the games themselves.

His gambit has paid off – Xbox Game Studios games are more successful now than ever (Sea of Thieves in particular is frequently setting records on Steam); meanwhile, Xbox hardware sales have not suffered. Yes, they aren’t matching PlayStation sales, but they weren’t matching PlayStation sales even prior to the PC day and date releases announcement. Xbox One was always trailing behind PS4 – Xbox games coming to PC didn’t change that pace, and Xbox One continued selling at more or less the same rate as before. Xbox Series X is being outsold by the PS5 – but, again, there seems to be no active impact to its sales pace caused by the fact that those games, that would otherwise be exclusive to Xbox, are available on PC as well. It’s still selling roughly on the same pace as Xbox Series X (and, judging by the fact that it routinely sells out, it is selling more than Microsoft is able to produce).

Would this apply to Sony too? Could they too get away with having their games release on PC day and date? Largely, I think the answer is yes. I think that, obviously, there will be some who would rather just play on PC – particularly since PC offers the best version of any game by definition, and because PC is now a one stop to play pretty much every game ever made in the industry (Nintendo being the singular holdout as of this point), so why not just consolidate your entire game playing to that one platform? But here’s the thing, Spencer was right too. Ultimately, PC and consoles are fundamentally different propositions, and for most people, the perceived and psychological convenience of consoles creates an inherent appeal that PCs do not match. Just as PC gamers love the flexibility and control that the platform offers them over their game playing experience, console players categorically love the convenience of having a platform where things just work with minimal friction. And of course, while PC has gotten far more convenient in the last decade, and consoles have added a lot more friction, in the end, they are still fundamentally different. Playing a game on consoles involves far fewer things to keep track of than playing a game on PC – this isn’t meant as a criticism, it’s meant as a recognition of the objective difference between the two platforms.

Meaning that for many, for most, in fact, console players? PC is a non-factor (just as for most PC players, consoles are a non-factor). The existence of Forza Horizon 5 on PC doesn’t mean anything to someone deciding to buy a console – for them, the choices are Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch, which means if they want Forza, Xbox is their only choice. It remains a de facto exclusive, for all purposes.

Meaning that the bulk of the console buying market – the people who buy FIFA and Assassin’s Creed and GTA and Mario Kart, those people, they aren’t going to be swayed by the PC. The existence of a PC version of a game is meaningless to them. Meaning effectively, having a PC version of your game loses you no exclusivity for the broader market (such as the broader market is concerned), and you expand your own addressable market by similarly offering your games to a new audience that, just like console players won’t ever be swayed by PC, will never be swayed by consoles. Your games end up selling a lot more, and your hardware sales remain largely unaffected.

And those increased software sales are essential – games cost a lot to make now, and those costs go up every time a new generation starts. They cost so much to make that it is simply not viable for most games to be profitable enough by selling purely to one audience. This is why every third party publisher eventually went multiplatform – because the profits gained by selling to every audience were the only way to keep up with scaling costs, they didn’t decide to double, triple, or quadruple the hardware they would have to build their games for for fun. Games are simply so expensive that even if they sell a lot on one system, they are limited by only being on that one system – they need a larger addressable audience. This isn’t just something I’m pulling out of thin air, by the way, former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden explicitly outlined rising development costs as a reason for concern as far as game development goes.

Those development costs rising are presumably also the reason that Sony’s biggest games have all committed to cross-gen releases at this point; a game like God of War Ragnarok or Horizon: Forbidden West simply costs too much to limit to just the audience of the presumably 12-20 million PS5 owners who exist in the market when those games come out. Even if every single one of those buys God of War or Horizon, they would only match sales for the PS4 games – PS4 games that, as a reminder, were cheaper to produce. And every single PS5 owner won’t buy God of War or Horizon, no matter how good they are. Sony’s games don’t have that kind of attach rate, and they won’t, because the bulk of people who buy a PlayStation buy it to play FIFA with friends. The easiest way to ensure that these upcoming, more expensive games end up actually standing a chance to be financially viable ventures, is to expose them to a broader audience – in this case, a broader audience within the PlayStation universe itself.

Now, in the interest of fairness, it is also important to note that Shawn Layden said he couldn’t see Sony ever doing day and date releases of its games on PC (though he qualified it with “never say never”). But the question I am answering here isn’t if Sony will do them, it’s should they. And the answer is, yes they should. The benefits are too great, particularly as they continue to push game development costs higher with needless generational bumps every few years; the losses? Minimal. Yes, some people will decide to simply buy their games on PC going forward, but a) those people are still buying their games, and b) the people who were only purchasing a PlayStation for exclusives were likely never too invested in the ecosystem in the first place. Sony makes most of its money from PlayStation via third party sales and sales from micro transactions, DLC, and subscriptions such as PS Plus. If you just own a PS4 to play God of War and The Last of Us, and use your PC for everything else, Sony isn’t making much money off of you to begin with – since you’re not spending money on micro transactions, DLC, third party games, and probably you are not spending money on PS Plus when you’re using your PC for multiplatform multiplayer games to begin with. So Sony doesn’t lose anything by you deciding not to buy their hardware (which is often sold at a loss to begin with, don’t forget) – particularly if you continue to buy their games on PC anyway.

So I think it would be beneficial for Sony to do this in the long run. I actually think they will eventually. Not right away, to will take some time – but PS5 development costs will continue to go up, and Sony’s games on PC have all been huge successes, and will presumably continue to be even more so as more and more high profile releases make the jump to the platform. And at some point, Sony will presumably come to the same conclusion Xbox did – that PC and console are differentiated audiences. There’s not as much overlap or potential for cross pollination there. The best thing to do is to serve both simultaneously – and rake in the money.

Everyone wins.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Launching in 2019, Days Gone was Sony Bend’s first new IP in quite a while. Although it ended up being their most successful game, reviews for the title were decidedly mixed at launch. This came down to a host of issues – the game’s lack of technical polish (always surprising for a Sony first party game), its relative lower quality compared to other PlayStation Studios games in the last decade or so, its rather generic and bland premise that it never does as much with, and despite some interesting systemic conceits, it playing it mostly by the book. All of these problems ended up making this the worst received of the “big” flagship Sony first party games. Although you could look at some of the smaller fare, such as Predator Hunting Grounds, to find games that had performed worse still, Days Gone was a premier game that was meant to stand side by side with titles such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Ghost of Tsushima (both of which in turn marked the ascension of their respective developers from making games that were merely good to making ones that count among the best titles of their respective years).

In spite of these relatively muted reviews – our own review for the game awarded it a 7/10, which is substantially lower than the scores we awarded Uncharted 4, Horizon, Bloodborne, The Last of Us Part 2, God of War, Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, and Death Stranding – the game did well. It likely sold millions, and it garnered a vocal and fiercely passionate fanbase. I would also be remiss to not mention the fact that multiple post-launch updates added a fair bit of polish and functionality to the game that did improve its quality and merits by at least a little. It’s still not a game that can stand toe to toe with the other major Sony games of the last decade, but it was at the very least a much better game than the low-70s scores that it got at launch would indicate, thanks to those subsequent fixes.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a sequel to Days Gone in these circumstances. Most importantly, of course, it had sold well, and commercial success is after all the primary concern when new games are greenlit. As mentioned, it had a fiercely passionate fan following as well. Finally, of course, Sony has a history of several of its now major franchises and studios having started from relatively humbler roots. A major Sony studio such as Guerilla Games started out with Killzone, a game panned upon launch. While Killzone saw relatively better received sequels for a while, eventually Guerrilla ended up putting out yet another poorly received title in the series with Shadow Fall. Nonetheless, credit to Sony for still believing in them, because their next game ended up being Horizon Zero Dawn, which would go on to not only become their best received and bestselling title yet, but also a significant hit for Sony, and a game that would inform the direction their subsequent first party efforts would take in several important ways.

Then there is a franchise like Uncharted – yes, even the infallible Naughty Dog had a relatively rough start with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Though received fairly well, it wasn’t exactly a game of the year contender (in fact, much like the PS3 itself, it was completely overshadowed by other major releases of its year, including Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3 and Mass Effect). However, Sony, again, had the faith to stick with Naughty Dog, and their next game would be Uncharted 2, considered one of the best games ever made to this day. Uncharted 2‘s success would in turn lead to the recalibration of Naughty Dog’s development sensibilities, as well as the promotion of personnel, who would go on to deliver The Last of Us a few years later, which is to this day the most significant Sony first party game ever.

What I’m trying to say is that Sony has been known to give its developers a lot of leeway even if they don’t get it exactly right on the first go. They let those developers try again, and get a second shot at hitting it big. It was especially perplexing, when viewed in that context, that Sony has apparently chosen not to extend the same benefit of the doubt to Bend – especially when Sony’s current head of first party efforts, Herman Hulst, is himself a Guerilla Games alum, who rose to prominence following the incredible success of Horizon. Why is Days Gone not being given a chance when so many other Sony studios and franchises have?

The most important thing to remember here is, as always, context. The comparisons listed above, while fair, are also not 1:1 analogous. Giving Guerilla Games or Naughty Dog multiple chances in the PS3 or even early PS4 eras, when game development budgets were significantly lower, is a substantially different undertaking than giving Sony Bend another blank check in an era where games can cost tens of millions of dollars – if not hundreds – to develop, with years of time, money, and resources pooled into their production. Purely commercially speaking, for Sony, it made far more sense to let a developer have another shot after a relatively poorly received title back in the 2000s and early 2010s, when multiple games put together would probably not cost as much to make as a single one may now.

The other major factor to remember here, and this one is a far more intangible one and therefore harder to explain and harder to palate, is the broader brand alignment of PlayStation Studios that Sony wants, and how Days Gone may or may not fit into that vision. To put that in plain language, in the last few years, there has been a very clear attempt by Sony to develop a consistent, cohesive vision and fabric for its first party titles that extends across all its big hits. As much as people arguing on message boards online might want to convince you otherwise, this is not a bad thing at all. Brands spend millions of dollars and years to have an instantly recognizable and cohesive direction across their product line, which can be instantly associated with them by the average customer. Look at how hard Marvel has worked to have a template and aesthetic that is distinctly theirs, which moviewatchers can not only instantly, subconsciously identify with Marvel when watching their movies, but even extend to using as a general adjective for other movies and even TV shows and games. Describing TV shows or games or movies as “like a Marvel movie” has happened because Marvel has worked hard at establishing a very clearly delineated and recognizable aesthetic and direction for their products that can be summed up as “Marvel”. Their movies by definition have to have similarities, or “like a Marvel movie” would have no meaning as a statement – how would it, if every Marvel movie is different?

Sony has worked hard to have this kind of singular aesthetic and structure that can be recognized across all their games too. No, I am not giving any credence to the “Sony template” memes that people like to bandy about unironically, but there is a clear shared thread across flagship Sony games – story-focused single player third person action-adventure games. Back in the PS3 era, when Sony used to make a lot of different kinds of games with no clear commonality across them, there was no consistent vision or aesthetic tying them together – but today, that is clearly not the case. As I mentioned earlier, this is a good thing. It’s the kind of thing companies take years and obscene amounts of money to achieve, and Sony having achieved it is a very clear part of their overall goals. And Sony isn’t even the only company to have achieved this within the gaming industry – there is a very clear common aesthetic and design sensibility across all Nintendo games, for example, which is why “Nintendo game” can be used so effortlessly as a generic adjective.

But the point of me bringing this up isn’t just to say that Sony’s games have a consistent direction of being story-driven open world third person action-adventure games. Because if that was all it was, then Days Gone very clearly fits into quite literally every single one of those slots. No, there is another unspoken, but heavily implied, component to Sony first party games’ overall identity that Sony views as being integral – integral enough that it supercedes everything else, in fact. And that factor is “quality.”

See, Sony has actually indicated this several times – it views its flagship productions as big quality initiatives. These are games that not only do abundantly well with critics, but are also big winners come award season. This emphasis on quality helps Sony create an aura of prestige around their brand as a whole, contributing to the overall desirability of every new flagship Sony game simply for existing – because a new Sony game must be something to pay attention to, given how incredible every single one of their other titles has been. It also helps drive the desirability and narrative surrounding these games, creating system sellers out of them because the PlayStation ecosystem can lay claim to having a guaranteed stream of high quality award winning games that you simply cannot get anywhere else.

Quality is crucial to Sony’s vision. That’s what the whole software strategy is built on. That’s what the whole console strategy is built on, in fact. Because obviously, while Sony recognizes that the bulk of its console revenues and success comes from the average customer who buys a PlayStation to play Fortnite and FIFA, they also recognize that if Fortnite and FIFA is all their consoles had to offer, there wouldn’t be any reason whatsoever to pick PlayStation over competing propositions such as Xbox. Sony’s entire console business relies on them selling their platform as an attractive proposition for third party publishers to sell their software on as a de facto option, based on a massive, engaged install base. But that massive and engaged install base comes from Sony consistently putting out quality exclusives that compel people to buy into PlayStation, and keep engaging with the platform. That can only happen if those quality exclusives are, in fact, quality. If the average customer walks into the store and has an option between two identically specced out and priced consoles, both of which can play Fortnite and FIFA, but one which can also play a stream of award winning games that the other cannot, they are significantly likelier to pick the option with those award winning games.

So as far as Sony’s big flagship productions go, the games have to be quality now. Where back in the PS3 era, when Sony’s whole approach to first party development and production was far more scattershot, titles with more muted reception such as Resistance: Fall of Man or God of War: Ascension may have made sense, they do not in context of where Sony is going today. While their smaller games such as Destruction AllStars or Concrete Genie can get by with not doing as well – their big tentpole releases don’t get that same leeway. They have to be prestige products.

Days Gone was not a prestige game. It had a fan following, it sold well, but it wasn’t a contender in the awards season, and its reception is still the worst of any big Sony first party game since The Order: 1886. There is, of course, every chance that Sony Bend may have been able to improve upon it significantly with a sequel – but to Sony, the brand itself probably doesn’t hold as much value, and Sony Bend was better off doing something new. Especially because Sony Bend’s learnings as a developer and as artists aren’t only applicable to Days Gone. No matter what they do next, they will have learned from Days Gone and will be able to improve upon it significantly with that next game. Sony Bend still gets to put out a new IP that will probably be their Horizon or Ghost of Tsushima moment – because they will have learned from Days Gone, and the feedback it got.

All of this is to say that it’s unlikely Sony actually does a sequel to the game any time soon. Of course, I can’t speak in absolutes – I’m not privy to Sony’s inside workings, and even Sony themselves can probably not say with surety whether or not they will still be unwilling to greenlight a sequel to the game in, say, ten years’ time. But honestly, looking at the graveyard of very literally dozens of fan-favorite Sony games and franchises that have received no follow-ups or even acknowledgement from Sony in years (if not decades), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that if it doesn’t get a sequel now – which it’s all but confirmed at this point that it won’t – then it never will.

Who knows, though. A PC port of Days Gone is coming up in a few weeks, and for all we know, the game has a renaissance of reception there that makes Sony reassess its stance with respect to the game, and makes it reconsider giving it a sequel some day (or at least keeping the option open). Or maybe a huge Days Gone fan one day takes over Sony’s first party strategy, and they make sure a sequel is greenlit. The options are limitless, and it’s impossible to say with total certainty that there will never be a Days Gone sequel again. But based on the facts we have on hand, as well as a proper assessment of Sony’s priorities as a publisher and as a platform holder, the prospect of there being a Days Gone 2 any time soon – if ever – is fairly non-existent.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Xbox, on the other hand, puzzlingly seemed to downplay the importance of exclusives around that same time, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to put at least some of the blame for Xbox One’s misfortunes over the years on the fact that there was very little impetus to pick it over a PS4. Once Phil Spencer took over, however, he resolved to address the situation. It’s taken him a very long time – the Xbox One is now last gen, and its successor is on the market – but over the last few years, Microsoft has purchased literally dozens of studios to add to their stable of developers, IP, and publishing labels. The end result is that, in terms of sheer numbers, Xbox now has the biggest first party on the market, with 23 studios (significantly more than PlayStation or Nintendo), and literally orders of magnitudes more IP than either of its competitors.

So at this point, what is the state of the three console manufacturers’ first party stable? It’s safe to say there has been a disruption of status quo, of course, but has it changed anything? Has Xbox made up the difference?

When comparing first party portfolios, we need to get the elephant in the room out of the way first – Nintendo. It goes without saying that Nintendo’s first party software is very literally in a league of its own. Nintendo has dozens of world class IP built up over the decades, and they remain the only company in history to be able to sell expensive hardware on the promise of nothing but their own games. Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Super Smash Bros., Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Pokemon, Splatoon, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Metroid, Xenoblade, Luigi’s Mansion, and so many more, are franchises from varied studios that single handedly can compel people to buy new Nintendo hardware, sell so many dozens of millions of copies that the list of bestselling games is dominated by Nintendo (in spite of their games being available on just one system, unlike most other titles on the market), have routinely delivered some of the most celebrated and acclaimed games of all time, cover pretty much every single genre under the sun, and have cultural cachet that is very literally unmatched by almost any other game (and certainly by no other first party’s titles). It is obvious, axiomatic, a given, that Nintendo’s first party is the best – when people spend hundreds of dollars to buy often undesirable hardware by the millions to just play the newest Mario Kart, the point is self evident. They’re playing on a different field than the other two.

The battle, then, is not for first place, but for second place. And here is where PlayStation has ruled the roost, especially in the last decade, slowly building up a reputation for consistency and excellence, and closing the once unfathomable gap that used to separate it from first place. The value and cachet of first party PlayStation games has been slowly rising, and Sony’s traditional studio driven strategy, combined with their recent emphasis on cultivating IP, has given rise to an enviable slate of award winning games that have comprised one of the longest unbroken streaks of consistent high quality we have ever seen.

But Sony’s rise isn’t a clean upward curve – this period has seen loads of studio closures (Guerrilla Cambridge, Evolution Studios, Sony Liverpool, Japan Studio), has seen a severe contraction of output in quantity, and has seen a definite emphasis on certain kinds of games and genres over others. Where once Sony used to put out all kinds of games, including fighters, multiplayer shooters, 2D platformers, and whatever the hell Tokyo Jungle was, they now mostly seem to emphasize third person action adventure titles. This isn’t to say that those are the only kinds of games they put out, as titles such as Dreams or Astro’s Playroom will easily and readily attest to, but it is undeniable and incontrovertible that the third person action adventure title comprises a significant majority of Sony’s output, and gets all of Sony’s marketing money and push. The fact that several studios responsible for more unique titles in Sony’s portfolio, such as Studio Liverpool with Wipeout, and Japan Studio with things like Gravity Rush, are now closed means this homogeneity may be likelier to continue, especially in the AAA console space (Sony’s VR efforts are, to their credit, generally varied and unique).

On paper, Microsoft has Sony beaten. This is true, no matter how much certain people may want to gnash their teeth over it. Theoretically, Microsoft has more than double the studios, two to three times more IP, and some of the biggest and most recognizable brands, across a multitude of genres, and with decades of history, now tied to Xbox – The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, Halo, Forza, Fable, Gears of War, Minecraft are all Xbox games. Bethesda Game Studios, Ninja Theory, id Software are all Xbox studios. While without Bethesda, I think this would be a very clear PlayStation win (albeit Xbox would obviously be closer than it was before Spencer went on his shopping spree), the addition of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls alone means we are looking at some of the most popular games of all time now being Xbox first party titles.

While Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War, and Horizon are obviously great, valuable IP with millions of fans, nothing Sony has comes close to matching the caliber of Fallout or The Elder Scrolls, except Spider-Man, and Spider-Man is a licensed IP.

Theoretically, Xbox is also covering a broader range of genres now – fighting games, racing games, RPGs, horror games, immersive sims, first person shooters, third person shooters, third person action adventure games, survival games, real time strategy games, simulation games, platformers, and more. Again, this is significantly more than Sony covers – actually it might be significantly more than even Nintendo covers at this point, especially when one considers that Nintendo has nothing, for example, in the immersive sim arena. In terms of sheer variety and breadth, theoretically, Xbox is now the top dog.

If I were to go by this analysis as painted above, then yes, Xbox takes the second place crown from PlayStation, with Nintendo still leading the pack (and Xbox actually beginning to trade blows with Nintendo in several areas, such as genre variety). This, again, is on paper. The fact of the matter is, all this is now contingent on Microsoft and Xbox properly executing and following through on all the acquisitions they have made. That means they have to manage these studios and IP well, not interfere with the creative process, and have them put out games in line with the expected quality from them prior to the acquisition. The issue is, Microsoft has not been known to do that in the past – consider how badly Rare was mismanaged, or how terribly Microsoft handled IPs with as much prestige as Halo or Gears of War. The one exception to the rule so far has been Minecraft, which under Microsoft, became bigger than it ever was prior to their acquisition, but we have far more examples of Microsoft mismanaging their game output than otherwise. And while some people might be tempted to point out that the examples of mismanagement are from before Phil Spencer took over as head of Xbox, which is fair, the bulk of them are still from a time when Phil Spencer was at the very least in charge of Microsoft’s first party lineup, if nothing else.

So has Microsoft closed the gap? On paper, sure. On paper, they are now way ahead of Sony, and within kissing distance of Nintendo (who maintain a thin first place lead). The jury is out on whether or not this actually translates into anything substantive in the real world. It all depends on how Microsoft manages its first party portfolio from here on out, as well as on whether or not Sony continues to decrease the breadth of its own first party as they have been in the past few years. In the here and now, though? Nintendo maintains first place, Sony is still second, and Microsoft is still third – but the battle is now closer than it has literally ever been before.

And that’s already a big change from status quo.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.