Sony's decision to release more games on PC makes complete sense | Opinion
Sam Naji
Wednesday 15th June 2022
Sony's PlayStation business strategy is changing.
During the PS4 generation, Sony's strategy was to double down on releasing quality first-party narrative games and offering its customers access to catalogue games with its PlayStation Now service. Although PS Now had PC access via a streaming solution and games controlled with a PS4 controller, the addition of a PC solution was not ideal. Apart from the fact keyboard and mouse was not supported, the quality of the streaming was sub-par even with a strong 30Mbs broadband download speed.
Today Sony is looking to complement and, some may fear, supplement, first-party narrative games with more "live services" games. In the latest presentation to investors, Jim Ryan announced up to ten new live service games will be in development by the Spring 2026 -- but it is with PC games that Sony have added some flesh to their financial modelling.
They say a picture paints a thousand words and nothing spells success than an upward trending sales graph. Below is a chart from Sony which shows PlayStation game revenue on PC during the last three years. 2022 is an estimation.
In the last three years, Sony will expect to make $415 million in PC game sales alone. That is almost half a billion dollars it otherwise would not have made if the company decided "for the benefit of the PlayStation brand" to keep their games exclusive to the PlayStation console.
Keep in mind that near half a billion dollar revenue comes from games that are best categorized as "catalogue." For example, in the chart above the three games listed released on the PS5 in February 2017 (Horizon Zero Dawn), April 2018 (God of War) and April 2019 (Days Gone). Recent news that Sony will release
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
