Playstation exclusives on PC: a winning move for Sony?

Playstation exclusives on PC

The arrival of some exclusive Playstations in digital stores on PC has sparked several rather heated discussions within gamers. After seeing the popular Horizon Zero Dawn land on Steam and following the announcement of the arrival of other titles such as Days Gone, the community is divided on this important news.

The president of Sony Interactive Entertainment - Jim Ryan said he wanted to experiment on this front again, to see how the personal computer market reacts to the arrival of the exclusive Playstations. In this article, therefore, we want to try to shed some light, trying to put ourselves in Sony's shoes to decide what to do with the future of their intellectual properties. Not having available the market analyzes undoubtedly made by the Japanese company, we can only hypothesize what awaits us in the future. However, we want to tease you already in the introduction, saying that the exclusive Playstations will continue to be released on PC and now we will explain why.

Different markets

A splendid scenario of the open world Horizon Zero Dawn Sony is a company of a certain depth and as such it will undoubtedly have made market analyzes to assess the impact of this choice. With the first "experiments" represented by the launch on the PC of the exclusives such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Death Stranding they wanted to concretely probe the ground and now they are preparing to define the future of their intellectual properties.

Probably from what Sony itself has analyzed a rather relevant fact has emerged: the market of consoles and that of personal computers are substantially different. The user who has bought a gaming PC perhaps has no interest in buying a console as well, remaining faithful to his gaming machine where he still enjoys an excellent library of titles. Similarly, most console users in all likelihood prefer the immediacy and simplicity of these devices, which can be easily placed in the living room to get a great gaming experience at an affordable price. Of course, there will always be that slice of the public who loves video games to the point of allowing themselves to different platforms in order not to miss any exclusives. However, it probably remains a rather limited audience that will hardly grow in the future with the arrival of cloud gaming services, but this is a topic for another article. Releasing Playstation games on PC does not macroscopically change this balance between the two platforms. Users will continue to buy Sony consoles, because they prefer to enjoy video games with the simplicity of this gaming machine and the same will happen with PC users with its respective advantages.

We have just assumed, in our opinion in a manner rather likely, what may have emerged from the market analysis made by Sony. This result is undoubtedly very important, because it allows us to continue with our assumptions about the exclusivity of Sony brands.

The gain

Spider-Man: another Sony Playstation exclusive The Japanese company is indeed a company and as such it undoubtedly aims at earning. Part of the latter comes from the sale of their intellectual properties, such as the 20 million copies sold recorded by Spider-Man. The game in question is now out in 2018 and has practically exhausted its potential for Sony's box office. The title was in fact also included in the Playstation Now, thus becoming available "free" for subscribers to the service, who have not yet had the opportunity to play it.

In 2021, a title like Spider-Man has undoubtedly covered the investment made by Sony and no longer generates a significant profit for the company. So why not propose it to the PC market? In this way it is possible to reach millions of other potential users, register a few more sales by selling the title at full price, all with a very minimal investment. The conversion of a title from Playstation 4 to PC requires little work, as the Sony platform is very similar to a computer in terms of components. It is therefore an easy profit for Sony, which can re-propose an old title at full price to other millions of players, without having to invest too much money.

Some might object, saying that in this way Sony forgoes other potential earnings from the purchase of one of their consoles. In fact, if a user bought the Playstation 4 to play Spider-Man, he would probably invest money in other titles, accessories or subscription services in the future, which would generate more income for the company. This is undoubtedly true, but as mentioned in the previous paragraph, the PC user and the console one is quite distinct and few would carry out this step. But there is another element to consider, if we really want to insist on the sale of Sony consoles to PC users and we will deepen it shortly.

The double-edged sword

Horizon Forbidden West coming to PS4 and PS5 It's true, Sony by offering its exclusives to PC users has made you lose the desire to buy its consoles, if you already have a gaming computer. Leaving aside the simple fact that the exclusives arrive with a considerable delay compared to their release on the Playstation, we must also consider their impact on the gamer's imagination.

Let's put ourselves in the shoes of the user who has just finished playing Horizon Zero Dawn on your computer. This gamer was pleasantly impressed by Sony's IP and would like to immediately play a sequel. By doing a quick search on the internet, the user discovers the existence of Horizon Forbidden West, the second chapter of the series coming to Playstation 4 and Playstation 5. At this point, driven by curiosity and the desire to try this new video game, the user might consider buying a Sony console in the short term. Before he got his hands on Horizon, he had no particular interest in Sony exclusives, but having gotten to try it on the PC, he changed his mind.

This is just an example of what could happen in the mind of gamers, who have never owned a Playstation platform. Imagine if, for example, Bloodborne, a soulslike much desired by the PC community, arrived on Steam at the same time as the announcement of the second chapter coming to Playstation 5. Selling Bloodborne at full price to PC players would probably lead to a good profit for Sony, without considering the potential future sales of Playstation 5 and Bloodborne 2.

One of the clashes of Bloodborne, Playstation 4 exclusive We are clearly continuing to hypothesize possible scenarios for the future, in fact there has not yet been any confirmation for how much concerns the arrival of Bloodborne on PC, let alone the existence of the second chapter coming to the Playstation platforms. However, this is an undoubtedly plausible scenario, which could generate profits for the Japanese company.

What awaits us in the future?

Finally, after speculating for the entire article. , we want to give you our opinion on what may happen with Sony's intellectual property in the future. If bringing PlayStation exclusives to PC actually generates easy money for Sony, we will soon see more titles coming to Steam or other digital stores. Games like Uncharted 4, Bloodborne, Spider-Man or the first The Last Of Us have now given everything they could, so they can safely leave the Playstation platform to reach millions of other gamers.

Similarly, if the choice to bring the exclusive Playstation on PC will generate in the long term an increase in the sales of Sony consoles, taking advantage of the strategy explained in the previous paragraph, the exclusives will continue to arrive on PC with a considerable delay, to privilege the purchase of the console. On the contrary, if the markets remain distinct, again as defined in this article, Playstation games could also arrive simultaneously on both PC and Sony consoles. It is a difficult choice to make and undoubtedly Sony will still need some time to collect as much data and analysis as possible, to get a more complete picture of the difficult gaming market. In fact, currently according to the words of Jim Ryan, Sony will decide "case by case" the possible releases on PC.

Official logo of the Playstation Now service In conclusion, we would like to mention also the much neglected but no less important Playstation Now, which is added as a further variable to the difficult task of distributing exclusive Playstations. The streaming game service is already available on PC, offering owners of this gaming platform the opportunity to enjoy various exclusive Playstations directly in streaming. The service will likely be evolved in the future to offer higher quality and a larger catalog of video games. After several paragraphs, numerous hypotheses and many suppositions, we have come to the end with the awareness that we simply have to wait, because it is currently difficult to make predictions on the evolution of this difficult to predict videogame market. However, Sony's desire to maximize their earnings remains clear by trying not to step on their toes on their own.

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