A few days ago, it was discovered thatPlayStationis seekingto hire a senior managerto oversee future ports to other digital platforms, including “Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox,Nintendo, and mobile”, while focusing on “optimising title profitability, ensuring cross-functional alignment, and leading a high-performing team focused on multiplatform expansion, mid-range commercial planning, and platform partner management”. Whoever’s hired will be leading a team of managers who work withXboxandPCports.
Sony Has Already Begun To Warm To Porting Its First-Party Games
This is a lot of words to say that Sony is taking steps to break further away from its console-exclusive strategy than it already has. While it’s definitelyjumping the gunto say that we’re going to be seeing Sony give up console exclusives completely, we’ve already seen it announce it will bebringing Helldivers 2 to Xboxon August 26, and the company has ported several of its single-player exclusives to PC over the years, likeStellar Blade,Ghost of Tsushima,God of War, andMarvel’s Spider-Man.
This is an extension of Sony’s existing strategy, not a wholly new one. It makes sense for PlayStation to try and eke money out of new demographics of players – anybody who hasn’t bought a PS5 for these games by the time their ports come out years after the game’s launch is unlikely to buy one anyway. Ports, in this case, only help buoy sales that have already largely stagnated.
Of course, this is also at least partly precipitated by Xbox backing off from hardware and going fully in on itsEverything Is An Xbox campaignand multiplatform releases. Its games have proven to sell very well on Sony’s consoles, so well thatForza Horizon 5 has become PlayStation 5’s best-selling game of the year. It wants you to be able to play all the games you want on whatever platform you want, as long as it’s one ofXbox’sgames.
Goodbye Console War, And Good Riddance
Sony, for its part, seems to understand that there is no console war left to fight. While the line for what it’s willing to bring to Xbox seems to be live-service games – Bungie’s Marathon, too, will have a multiplatform release – it’s seemingly grown more amenable to sharing titles with other platforms, given Lego Horizon Adventures had a simultaneous launch on PS5, PC, and theNintendo Switch. This job posting suggests that these decisions are not one-offs, and Sony will be focusing on ports as a stream of income in the years to come.
After all, why not? With both the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 at technical parity and more games across the board launching as multiplatform titles, players aren’t choosing which system they buy based on exclusives. They’re happy to wait for ports, especially since there are more games being released than ever, spoiling players for choice and building up impossibly big backlogs.
Does this mean that Sony, too, will be focusing on publishing as a source of income alongside sales of its console? It’s hard to say. Nobody but Sony has insight as to the long-term strategy, and I obviously don’t work there. But if permanent console exclusivity is going down the drain, then so is the console war.
