Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has said players shouldn’t expect to see Sony‘s titles released day-and-date on PC, despite the publisher’s recent moves to bring some of its biggest titles to the platform.
Speaking to YouTube channel What’s Up PlayStation (as spotted by VGC), Layden said he doesn’t think “you’ll ever see PlayStation do a day and date with PC”, though he added “never say never”.
Layden pioneered Sony’s push to bring titles such as Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone to PC, saying that “the strategy as we were developing it when I was there was that we need to go out to where these new customers are, these new fans could be.”
Unlike main rival Microsoft, which launches almost all first-party titles on the same day across Xbox and PC, Sony’s approach has been to maintain console exclusivity on PS4 and PS5, only bringing a select number of its biggest games to PC years later.
The choice was designed to show PC gamers what they’re missing out on from Sony’s catalogue of exclusives, without risking sales on its own platforms.
Layden said the idea was to take top selling games that have “already blown up the marketplace, already been out there for 18 months or 24 months,” and offer no risk of “trading off one sale for another”, and to “bring that to the personal computer platform and let them have an idea – you guys choose not to come to PlayStation but let me show you what you’re missing.”
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Layden essentially saw the initiative as a form of outreach, a way to open up Sony’s games to a wider audience without cannibalising sales on its primary platforms. As a result, expect to see future ports of PlayStation games to continue the trend of bringing beloved classics, rather than latest releases, to PC.
The next major release will be the Uncharted Collection, bringing all five games to PC in early 2022.
Elsewhere, Nvidia has announced a promotion offering a free copy of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy to anyone buying a new gaming PC.