In recent years, the wind is completely changing for players who have gotten used to PlayStation exclusive games coming to the PC platform after a while. Sony, which has been bringing huge productions such as God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon and The Last of Us to PC users through Steam and Epic Games for years, is giving up this strategy.

According to solid reports from the industry and internal statements from PlayStation executives, future single-player and story-focused first-party PlayStation games will now bypass the PC platform and remain exclusive to PS5 and later consoles.

PlayStation Exclusive Games Return to the Heart of the Console

According to information first leaked and later confirmed by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst officially announces this strategy change at an internal meeting with employees. Sony, which is pursuing a very aggressive expansion policy by saying “Almost half of our games will come to PC and portable platforms” in 2022, apparently cannot find what it hopes for in the PC market.

With the new decision, huge budget single-player productions such as Ghost of Yotei, which players are excited to see on the PC, Saros, an original brand, and Marvel’s Wolverine by Insomniac Games, can only be played on PlayStation 5 and its hardware family.

Multiplayer and Live Service Games Are Exceptions

This step back in Sony’s PC strategy only covers single-player and story-focused games. According to Hermen Hulst’s internal statements, the PlayStation front continues to bring multiplayer titles such as Bungie’s Marathon and the upcoming Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls to the PC platform.

The fact that Live Service games need a large and active player base to survive and maintain their revenue flow makes it necessary for Sony to maintain its cross-platform support between PC and console in this field. The huge success of Helldivers 2 in the PC market stands out as the biggest proof behind this policy.

Why Is Sony Withdrawing From the PC Market?

There are several important reasons behind this sharp turnaround of the Japanese technology giant. Firstly, the commercial performance of first-party games released on the PC side remains well below company expectations. Various market reports indicate that Sony’s first-party PC sales account for only a small percentage of PlayStation’s total revenue. In addition, the optimization problems experienced in the PC ports released in the past, the discussions about compulsive PSN account integration and the heavy reactions of PC players to these situations damage Sony’s market reputation.

Sony management has been building the PlayStation brand for decades on special games that are single-player, have a deep story and directly “sell consoles”. When it is known that a game for which millions of dollars have been spent will come to Steam after a few years, players’ motivation to purchase hardware naturally decreases. Analyzing sales statistics, the company admits that selling its own hardware and growing ecosystem subscriptions is much more profitable than selling a few extra copies on Steam a few years later.

New Generation Xbox and Project Helix Threat

Perhaps the most striking external factor behind the decision stems from the future plans of arch-rival Microsoft. According to strong arguments in the field, Microsoft’s new generation Xbox console, codenamed “Project Helix”, aims to integrate well-known PC stores such as Steam or Epic Games directly into the device interface.

If Sony continues to release huge self-financed games on Steam, a PlayStation exclusive becomes indirectly playable on Xbox hardware as well. The possibility of its exclusive games working on a rival console is seen as a scenario that Sony can never tolerate. For this reason, the company is drawing its conclusions again in order to protect its ecosystem and not to lose its greatest power in the console wars.