Sony may be bridging the gap between the launch of PlayStation exclusives and PC ports. Company President Hiroki Totoki suggested during a post-earnings Q&A session on Wednesday (through VGC) he wants PlayStation to be “aggressive in improving our margin performance” with “multi-platform” games playing a significant role. In the conversation, he clarified that by multi-platform he meant PlayStation and PC – no Xbox or Transition.
Asked about Sony’s profit not keeping pace with growing overall revenue, he said hardware and first-party games were two areas of focus. He noted that hardware cost reductions have been “hard to come by” this console cycle and suggested that we won’t see permanent drops in the console’s price.
“Personally, I think there’s room for margin improvement there, so I’d like to be aggressive in improving our margin performance,” he said. Totoki has hinted that one way to get there is to make more money from his (often critically acclaimed and commercially successful) PlayStation Studios games. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and God of War: Ragnarok.
“In the past, we wanted to popularize consoles, and the main purpose of a first-party title was to popularize the console,” Totoki told Q&A. “That’s true, but there’s a synergy to it, so if you have strong first-party content — not just on our console, but on other platforms like PC — it’s first-party. [game] can be grown with multiple platforms and that can help improve operating profit, so that’s another platform we want to actively work on.
That’s a clear shift from PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst’s thoughts on 2022. He then said that PC gamers would have to wait “at least a year” before seeing first-party PlayStation games (minus live service titles) on their PCs. God of War (2018) and first Marvel’s Spider-Man There was a nearly four-year gap between the PS4 and PC releases. The last one Miles Morales spin-off saw a nearly two-year turnaround.
On February 8, Sony went on sale Helldivers 2 Simultaneously on PS5 and Windows. VGC notes the game tied for PlayStation Studios’ highest number of concurrent Steam players – it lost God of War (2018), The end of us part I and Horizon Zero Dawn. Helldivers 2 is developed by Arrowhead Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
It’s not clear if Totoki means we can expect upcoming PlayStation tents. Wolverine game or the ever-popular Spider-Man, God of War, or various Naughty Dog franchises will appear on PC on the same day as the console. But regardless, the strategy shift is underway, and Totoki will have the leverage to implement the plan: Jim replaces Ryan as interim CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment in April.
