After reports of PlayStation backing away from PC launches, it now looks like the company may actually be following through. Several of its studios have started dropping mentions of other platforms and leaning harder into ‘PlayStation-exclusive’ messaging. This change may also be tied to PC releases not generating as much profit as Sony expected.
This numbers issue comes from former PlayStation PC Planner & Insights Manager Jerry Liu. His LinkedIn profile mentioned that he helped grow the PC division from ‘$0 to $300 million’ in ‘net revenue’ between January 2021 and June 2023. That’s one of the clearest publicly accessible data points that shows how PlayStation’s PC expansion has performed internally.
Manage all business operations functions for PS PC group, helping the unit grow from $0-300M in Net Revenue for Sony in 3 years.
That means it took three years for PC — across Steam and Epic Store — to generate $300 million. That might sound huge, but PlayStation Store alone could generate more than half, or around $853 million, across the same three-year period.
More recently, some studio descriptions also appear to have been quietly tweaked — perhaps to reflect on this U-turn. First spotted by @Zuby_Tech on X, Valkyrie Entertainment’s description previously written as producing work ‘across a range of platforms from console to PC’ until early this year. Now, the description focuses entirely on co-development for PlayStation franchises. PC is no longer mentioned.
The same goes for XDEV, where it previously emphasized collaborating with external studios globally regardless of platform. The new version instead highlights ‘exclusive titles’ for PlayStation.We have confirmed the change through Wayback Machine, as seen above.
Not every studio is following that pattern, though. Nixxes, the studio Sony acquired specifically for PC ports, still explicitly mentions ‘high-quality PC ports’ in its description. That’s not too surprising, considering Sony seems to be just keeping its AAA single-player PlayStation exclusive again.
Previously, Bloomberg and several other reports suggested that Sony could be rethinking parts of its multiplatform strategy. The company is said to have canceled plans to bring its major single-player games, including Wolverine, Saros, and Ghost of Yotei, to PC. Meanwhile, multiplayer games like Marvel Tokon and external projects are still expected to be released across multiple platforms.
While it might prove that the PC pie isn’t as profitable as its own channel, timing could also play a factor. Almost all of Sony’s PC releases arrived much later after their PlayStation debut. God of War launched on PS4 back in 2018 but didn’t hit Steam until 2022, for example. Days Gone took two years. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart took more than two. Even newer releases like Returnal and The Last of Us Part I still landed months later.
Then again, Sony is definitely thinking that releasing them closer together could risk cannibalizing first-party profit — not to mention PlayStation hardware sales. There’s also 30% cut for third-party platforms to consider. Perhaps, this is one way for Sony to prepare for the inevitable PS6 launch. Hold tighter onto the biggest first-party games and make exclusives matter again.
