In conjunction with the release of its financial results, Sony is providing a lot of information about the company and the actions that the Japanese intend to take in the future. The president of the corporation spoke about games from internal teams and multiplatform in this regard.
The exclusivity of Sony games has been in question for some time now. In recent years, the corporation has frequently changed its approach to this topic. Early on, we received assurances that the PlayStation manufacturer would remain 100% committed to dedicated hardware. Later it was announced that Horizon: Zero Dawn would be released on PC, then Hermen Hulst stated that each case would be considered individually. Then the head of PlayStation Studios said that service games would be released simultaneously on PlayStation and PC (which is logical, in order to maintain as large a player base as possible).
Hiroki Totoki, president of Sony, returns to this topic and mentions the further development of computer games by in-house studios:
We used to want to popularize consoles, and the main goal of our games was to make consoles popular. This is true, but there is a synergy there. So if you have strong native content, not only for our console but also for other platforms such as PCs, the native content can be enhanced with multi-platform and this can help improve operating margins. This is another issue that we want to actively work on.
Personally, I believe there are opportunities to improve profitability, so I would like to be aggressive in improving our profitability metrics
The quoted fragment certainly applies to the games and services I mentioned. However, there are rumors that after some time, Sony may decide to simultaneously premiere its single-player games on PlayStation and PC. This will be a real revolution compared to what we have seen so far. The announced Until Dawn remake will debut simultaneously on both platforms, although, as we know, console users have already had the opportunity to get acquainted with this game.
The PlayStation manufacturer still has in its library many hits that have not yet been released on computers, for example, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us Part II or God of War: Ragnarok. Let us remind you that Sony is still announcing games that will only be available on their console: Stellar Blade or Rise of The Ronin. The Japanese also sign a lot of exclusive deals with, for example, Square Enix, which means games like Foamstars or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth won’t be released on other platforms for a while. However, it is not certain that this state of affairs will last forever, and the time may soon come when Sony changes its publishing strategy. Game development is becoming increasingly expensive, so it’s no surprise that companies are looking for new ways to raise more money.
