As Sony raises the price of PlayStation 5 consoles once again, the gaming giant is reportedly looking to stop PC ports of its exclusive first-party games. While multiplayer titles—such as the recently released Marathon—are staying multiplatform, the console maker is seemingly planning to stop releasing single-player games like Marvel’s Wolverine on PC.
In a report by Bloomberg, it was claimed that PC players’ pushback against PlayStation Network accounts and lower-than-expected sales are causing Sony to return to its previous PS5 exclusive format of new single-player games.
However, it turns out that PlayStation has been largely successful in its late PC ports of PlayStation exclusive games. According to the LinkedIn profile of former PlayStation PC planner & Insights Manager Jerry Liu, PlayStation made over $300 million from sales of PC games in 2023.
Liu confirmed that their work at the PlayStation PC team helped “the unit grow from $0-300M in net revenue for Sony in 3 years”, adding that they “helped increase the gross revenue of the business unit by 25%+”.
The former PlayStation employee also revealed that they helped “convince leadership to pursue more aggressive pricing strategy” to increase sales. When games did release on Steam years after their PS5 launch, they often did so with a slight price cut, whereas new multiplayer games such as Helldivers 2 launched at lower price points.
It’s worth noting that software sales on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 do eclipse PlayStation’s PC software sales in this same period with nearly triple the revenue over the same multi-year period. Nevertheless, for a brand that has not been seen in the PC gaming space, $300 million in revenue is nothing to balk at.
With that said, PlayStation’s biggest PC gaming success over the years has been Helldivers 2 , a game which the company has publicly praised while other live-service games have faltered. With 13 million copies sold on PC, the multiplayer title is dominated by PC players, and is likely the reason why live-service PlayStation games will stay multiplatform as single-player titles shift back towards console exclusivity.
