There was a moment back in 2024 when it seemed like a switch at flipped on console exclusivity. Microsoft was brining some of its biggest games to Switch and PS5 and Sony was supporting PC ports more than ever. A fully multiplatform future felt almost inevitable. But things have shifted since then and Sony is reportedly pulling back from platforms like Steam to double-down on the PlayStation 5 ecosystem, at least when it comes to single-player games like Wolverine.
We reported on rumors of this upcoming shift earlier this week. “I get the feeling that under the current leadership, that PC has become less important.” Digital Foundry‘s John Linneman said on a recent podcast. Bloomberg‘s Jason Schreier coincidently shared a similar inkling on Triple Click, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if Wolverine just never came to PC at all.
To make clear that this wasn’t just idle speculation, Schreier followed up on the gaming forum ResetEra to clarify. “It’s not speculation, but sometimes topics come up on the show before I’m quite ready to publish a story about them,” he wrote. “More to come soon I’m sure.”
Since then, insider NateTheHate has come out with an even more clear-cut pronouncement. “They are shifting their PC release strategy,” he tweeted on February 27. “You’ll be seeing fewer single player games arrive on PC. The decision to shift away from supporting PC was made last year. Naturally, some may still release (pending how far along the ports were) but it no longer appears to be a priority for Sony moving forward.”
That’s an awful lot of smoke for no fire, and in fact the flames have been building for a few months now. “It does seem like the games that PlayStation released on PC didn’t move the needle for them at all,” WindowsCentral‘s Jez Cordon said on a podcast last November based on what he’d heard from a source. “Partially because they were launched so late, but maybe they’ve used that as evidence that they shouldn’t go any further, and that they should remain more Nintendo in their approach and keep things more exclusive.”
PC ports made sense for Sony
Sony pulling back on PC outside of live service games like Marathon and Horizon Hunters Gather would fly in the face of recent conventional wisdom, which is that as development budgets balloon, publishers need to sell their games wherever they can in order to claw back as much sales revenue as possible. While ditching exclusives altogether might be lethal to a very lucrative PS5 console business, a hybrid approach like delayed ports coming to PC seemed like a smart way for the company to have its cake and eat it too.
Has the strategy been successful though? Sony’s latest earnings report pointed to $2.37 billion in sales revenue from games on PC and Xbox. While that number is dominated by the success of live service franchises like Helldivers 2 and MLB The Show, it also includes over a million unit sales across recent ports like Spider-Man 2 and Ghost of Tsushima. How much added revenue is enough to offset the costs of porting the games and any potential PS5 momentum that gets sacrificed from PC players who just wait instead of buying a console (and don’t forget Valve’s 30 percent cut of Steam sales)?
Here’s what PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst told investors last year. “It’s important to realize that we’re really thoughtful about bringing our franchises off console to reach new audiences and that we’re taking a very measured, very deliberate approach in doing that,” he said. “Particularly on the single-player side, our tentpole titles, they’re such a point of differentiation for the PlayStation console.”
The case for not bringing Wolverine to Steam
Perhaps the last couple years of data suggests the trade-off isn’t as worth it as Sony once hoped it would be. It could also be that the cinematic, story-driven blockbusters PlayStation Studios have become synonymous with just aren’t the types of games may PC players are very interested in, especially a year after launch hype has died down and with very little marketing.
The genres that routinely blow-up on Steam, from roguelikes with complex systems to hardcore soulslikes with unforgiving mechanics, are not the ones Sony is known for. Maybe that explains why Stellar Blade sold a million copies on Steam in just three days where games like God of War Ragnarök have struggled (the occasional busted port doesn’t help either).
Better to get those PC players who actually want to play Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet to just go out and buy a PS5 (or a PS6) instead. If the current console generation has proven anything for Sony, it’s that it’s easier to make money off of existing diehard fans than try to rope in new ones.
