Sony has been increasingly willing to put its first-party games on PC, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. According to the company’s chairman, Hiroki Totoki, Sony sees excellent potential for further expansion into the PC gaming market.
Sony to invest in more multi-platform games
Sony recently revealed there will be no new games from major existing IPs this year. However, the same conference also confirmed the company’s more significant investment in multi-platform first-party games. “In the past,” Totoki explained, “we wanted to popularize consoles, and a first-party title’s main purpose was to make the console popular. This is true, but there’s a synergy to it, so if you have strong first-party content – not only on our console but also other platforms, like computers – a first-party [game] can be grown with multi-platform, and that can help operating profit to improve, so that’s another one we want to proactively work on.”
The company’s investment in PC gaming isn’t new. The the God Of War, The Last of Us, and Horizon franchises receiving PC ports. Sony released Helldivers 2 for PlayStation 5 and PC last week, and it was a major hit on both platforms.
Totoki sees cross-platform titles as a way to boost the net profits of Sony’s gaming division. As discussed during the conference, PlayStation’s increased income isn’t leading to an equally increased bottom line. Totoki attributed this underperformance to increased console manufacturing costs while keeping consoles affordable enough that the price doesn’t hurt sales. While Sony is working on reducing costs, releasing more first-party games on PC should help boost the company’s bottom line.
