His full story is forthcoming, but I don’t know how that squares with incoming PC ports for Death Stranding 2 and the sequel to Kena. Maybe because they’re only Sony published? Exclusivity of a handful of games that I may or may not be interested in still isn’t going to make me want a PS5, personally.
I’m acutely aware of how anti-consumer it is, but I always found it strange they ever started putting singleplayer games on PC.
Yes, it’s some revenue for the game itself, filtered through Valve’s 30% cut. But from what I gather, most of the reason the console offering works is because people who’ve finished God of War will learn about some new forever F2P game, and decide to play it on that same PlayStation, thus getting all the microtransaction revenue. None of that environmental connection really happens on PC.
That especially hurts because the cost and risk for singleplayer games hasn’t always been great. Sure, we look positively at Hollow Knight: Silksong, but that often ignores the 95 other indie failures for every Silksong. At the least, a publisher like Sony that’s put out enough big hits can pull that failure rate down, but they’ll still put out stinkers; and the whole “environmental buy-in” helps to pay for that failure rate.
But, if people can get their well-produced games anywhere, the insular cycle encouraging people to get PlayStations kind of falls apart. Not many people will buy them specifically to play FortNite (though they will, in the end). It was good for PC consumers for a time, but I feel like PC releases were very much motivated by short-term profit. You can also see how, since singleplayer games fit in a longer-term industry plan, it may explain why we don’t see many of them anymore.
I wonder how much of this is related to the posturing from the new lead of Xbox about returning to exclusivity over there.
We were so close to one of the dumbest things in gaming for decades finally going away.
(Also, nothing Sony does from here on out will surprise me in its stupidity after they shuttered Bluepoint.)
Refusing to release titles to the PC isn’t going to make me run out and purchase a console. There are tons of games on PC. My backlog is long enough that I can live happily without whatever kind of bullshit Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox are trying to peddle. Assuming I did care about a specific title, and it’s being gate locked by console exclusivity, I’ll fucking pirate it. Sony, Microslop, and Nintendo can all get fucked.
I also kind of think that the strongest argument for console gaming is competitive multiplayer, not single player.
The fact that the consoles are closed and locked down inherently provides resistance to cheating and such, where the open PC world tries to (poorly) replicate a closed environment via kernel anti-cheat stuff. The console world having (well, more-or-less) one option when it comes to hardware means that everyone playing against each other has a fairly-level playing field — same input hardware, and people don’t get an edge from having fancier rendering hardware.
For single-player gaming, those console strengths become weaknesses — for single-player games, it’s preferable for the player to be able to do things like freely mod games, upgrade hardware to get fancier graphics, provide a lot of options as to what input stuff to use, etc. It doesn’t hurt anyone else for me to have the game running however I want, so I should be able to do so. On the PC, a player gets to enjoy all that.
If I were a console vendor and I were worried about the PC as a competing platform, I’d think that I’d try to emphasize my competitive multiplayer games, not single-player games.
If I were a console vendor and I were worried about the PC as a competing platform, I’d think that I’d try to emphasize my competitive multiplayer games, not single-player games.
Step one: Don’t charge extra for online play.
but I don’t know how that squares with incoming PC ports for Death Stranding 2 and the sequel to Kena.
These publishing contracts have been signed years ago. So that’s not evidence of the contrary. Sony could be in a stage now where they do not take on new PC projects.
Welp, looks like I’ll need to get myself a PS5 then.
Said no cunt ever
GTA6 is likely going to be the only reason I’d get one, because the rest of the exclusives have been pretty lacklustre.
Sony turned so anti-consumer due to their PS4 dominance that even with a fairly modest digital library of games I still bailed to PC when the PS5 came around.
Sony has always been pretty anti consumer. I’m addition to the root kit thing, they have a history of pushing their own propietary crap as open standards. Sometimes successfully (blu ray) and sometimes not (memory stick). They also removed the “other OS” (Linux) option from the PS3 midway through the console’s life cycle.
I’m sure there’s more examples, but they’ve been a bottom tier brand for a long time due to this for me.
Sony turned so anti-consumer due to their PS4 dominance…
no, that’s just Sony.
anyone remember that time Sony installed rootkits on PCs that played their music CDs?
Their loss. Stupid move.
They’re going to learn that the days when publishers could strongarm gamers are over. There are too many games on too many alternatives, so it’s too easy for gamers, faced with unnecessary hoops through which they’re required to jump, to just say, “Well fuck that then - I’ll play something else.”
Its REALLY easy to just not buy their shit then.
Sony: “Exclusivity will increase sales!”
Customers: “I can’t afford your exclusivity”
I can afford it, and I’ll bet I’m far from alone, but I’d essentially be buying a dedicated computer that can only play a handful of games, and it would play them worse than my PC could if they’d only make the game available there. There’s no shortage of stuff to play, so it ends up just being a bad value even when you’ve got the money.
I like playing Sony games on PC from time to time but it they don’t release anything more on PC that is OK too, I have plenty of other stuff to play anyway.
The only way this makes sense is if Sony feels they’ve cornered enough of the market to be able to recoup the enormous costs of AAA development. I don’t see how that’s possible without a huge price increase of the console and games.
The PS5 Pro is way overpriced and the regular PS5 doesn’t really have many exclusives over PS4 so it’s not a big surprise they can’t move consoles
Is this just because they are like while we pump the number you have to pay for a PS (because of ram plus premium) and they are like, lets milk them while we have a sacrificial goat?
This makes a lot of sense if the next Xbox is just a glorified PC. Right now Sony releases some of their games to PC, but never to Xbox. Multiplayer titles really are the ones that make no sense being exclusive because you need that extended network effect
I don’t think keeping the single player games exclusive makes much sense either. Sony’s bread is buttered by taking the same 30% Valve makes on each game sale. If they’re only converting you for single player games, you’re buying…what…5 games on the platform, lifetime? And they’re all Sony published? Realistically, on PC, you’re probably already playing everything else on PC with no subscription fee that they would want to get a cut from. I think Sony has reached everyone they’re going to reach, and you’re just leaving money on the table by not bringing those games to PC, even if they come late.
The exclusive games lead to more sales of other games. If they get rid of exclusives they might as well just give it up and end the PlayStation brand.
PC may be fine for you, but it’s still a shit show IMO. Maybe Valve will fix it. Gaming on Linux has gotten way better since the SteamDeck came out, but still not good enough to get me to switch. Maybe the Steam Machine will eventually turn the tides. But hell, they take 30% too, so really no different than Sony from a developer’s perspective
It’s ok to like something else, but the world has already chosen their king.
Steam vs. PlayStation vs. Xbox vs. Switch 2 (Early 2026 Comparison)
Metric Steam (PC) PlayStation (PS5) Xbox (Series X/S) Switch 2 Total Titles ~120,000+ ~6,500+ ~5,500+ ~1,200+ (incl. BC) AAA Titles ~800+ ~450+ ~400+ ~110+ Monthly Active Users (MAU) 147 Million 123 Million ~100 Million* 60+ Million (Early) Peak Concurrent Users 42.04 Million ~18-20 Million ~12 Million ~8 Million Average Game Price $15 - $25 $45 - $55 $40 - $50 $50 - $60 Metacritic Score (Avg) 72% 78% 76% 82% (Exclusives) Available Countries Global (Digital) 70+ (Hardware) 40+ (Hardware) 45+ (Hardware) *Note: Xbox MAU often includes PC/Mobile Game Pass users, making direct console-only comparisons difficult.
Sources & Context
- Steam Statistics: SQ Magazine (Jan 2026) and SteamDB confirmed a record-breaking 42.04 million concurrent users in January 2026. Steam’s library surpassed 120,000 titles in late 2025.
- PlayStation Performance: Sony reported 123 million MAU in mid-2025 (via Push Square), with the PS5 reaching 90.2 million lifetime units sold by January 2026 (Outlook Respawn).
- Switch 2 Launch: The Switch 2 has reached 17.37 million units sold globally as of February 2026, leading hardware sales in major regions like Asia (Game Developer).
- Xbox Ecosystem: Xbox Game Pass reached 40 million subscribers in early 2026. While official hardware-only MAU is rarely split, ecosystem-wide engagement remains high due to cloud expansions in 29+ countries including India and Brazil (Xbox Wire).
- Pricing Trends: AAA games have stabilized at a $70 psychological floor, with “Deluxe” and “Ultimate” editions frequently pushing the $80-$100 range in 2026 (GamesIndustry.biz).
Yeah, the king is mobile. It dwarfs PC and console combined. Now please take your AI generated response and shove it
I don’t think the Xbox or PlayStation brand will end anytime soon, but trying to keep doing things the way they’ve been done makes about as much sense as a cable company fighting against the rise of streaming television. PC is the largest single platform and is still growing, and even despite the complete obliteration of Sony’s closest competitor, PlayStation 5 hasn’t grown compared to 4; their growth has only come from selling at higher prices to the same number of users and from microtransactions from games that they don’t make themselves which are available on many platforms. Which doesn’t mean that they don’t still have their customers like yourself, but if I already decided to play my games on PC, how on earth are they going to convince me to start buying third party games on PlayStation, where their money is actually made? At the very least, they can offer me the ability to buy their big blockbusters (which often cost more to make than they’re seeing back in returns these days) on PC to recoup some of what they spent.
