There’s a weird rumour doing the rounds claiming Sony is working on its own launcher for PC games.
While we haven’t been able to track down the original source, the X (or Twitter) post below gained a lot of traction by regurgitating the story:
The speculation suggests that PlayStation will deploy its own PC launcher, with the intention of keeping 100% of the revenue for its games.
The rumour continues that this would allow it to block its software from appearing on Xbox Helix, which will support third-party storefronts like Steam.
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It then inexplicably adds that Marvel’s Wolverine will launch day-and-date on PC, using the alleged launcher.
There was some speculation late last year that Sony may be plotting its own launcher, after a cross-buy icon was discovered on the PS Store.
But that pre-dated reports that PlayStation has actually pulled the plug on its PC porting strategy. Reliable sources like Bloomberg claim Sony has axed conversions of Ghost of Yotei and Saros due to poor sales.
And writing in response to this latest round of rumours, reporter Jason Schreier has doubled down.
He posted on ResetEra:
“At some point Sony will confirm [it’s no longer releasing PC ports], whether it's on a call with investors or maybe even when Housemarque starts doing press for Saros and someone asks if they have plans to bring it to PC and they say no.”
Seeing as there’s no credible source for this PC launcher speculation, while Schreier is one of the most dependable journalists in the business, we’re going to side with the latter here.
Outside of live service games and partnered projects from third-party studios, it seems like PlayStation really is done with PC for the time being.