Fans Reckon PS Studios Website Adjustments Hint at Sony's Move Away from PC

Plus: Bluepoint removed

by Stephen Tailby 1 hour ago

Fans Reckon PS Studios Website Adjustments Hint at Sony's Move Away from PC 1 — *Image: Push Square*

Fans have spotted some recent changes to PlayStation's official webpage for its first-party developer group, PS Studios.

As pointed out by X user Zuby_Tech, there are some small but potentially meaningful adjustments.

It's previously been reported that Sony is set to move away from the PC market and concentrate on its console ecosystem going forward.

Well, fans are interpreting these changes on the PS Studios website to reinforce that notion.

The two standout examples are Valkyrie Entertainment and XDEV.

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Support studio Valkyrie's description used to say "A well respected studio known for producing high quality work on a range of platforms from console to PC."

It now reads: "Providing top tier co development expertise to several of PlayStation Studios most iconic and award winning franchises, including Astro Bot, Helldivers 2 and God of War."

Any mention of alternative platforms has been removed.

For XDEV, the change is less pronounced. Its old description was "Collaborating with ambitious external studios across the globe," and now, it's this: "Partnering with talented independent studios to publish exciting, exclusive titles for PlayStation players worldwide."

While there was never mention of PC, the inclusion of the word "exclusive" is what fans are pointing to in this example.

While there could be something to this, it should also be pointed out that the description for Nixxes Software still mentions "PC ports" as a speciality of the studio.

Other changes to this page include the removal of Bluepoint Games, which was sadly closed recently, and the addition of TeamLFG, a new studio making something known as Project Gummy Bears.

What do you reckon? Is there much in this? Has Sony really dropped the idea of making PC ports? Tell us in the comments section below.

[source playstation.com, via x.com]

Stephen has been part of the Push Square team for over six years, bringing boundless enthusiasm and a deep knowledge of video games to his role as Assistant Editor. Having grown up playing every PlayStation console to date, he's developed an eclectic taste, with particular passion for indie games, arcade racers, and puzzlers. He's also our go-to guy for Sonic-related matters, much to his delight/chagrin.

1
Fiendish-Beaver
1 hour ago

I think Sony should move away from PC releases. This exact issue has severely hurt the Xbox brand, and Sony were risking the same albeit to a lesser extent. Keeping their games exclusives means you have to own a PlayStation. The same is not true of Xbox...

2
Frmknst
1 hour ago

This would've been thr job of journalists or ps blogs not some random fans!

3
KoopaTheGamer
1 hour ago

@Fiendish-Beaver I think their sales have been consistently good (well, not counting some live service fails), so I don't think their PC releases have caused any damage whatsoever.

Besides, now that they've increased the price of their consoles, it would make a lot of sense to maximize their software sales. Not utilizing all the tools at their disposal (that is, PC as a platform) is a missed oportunity.

4
TrollOfWar
1 hour ago

If someone on Twitter/X wrote it then it's definitely a clear sign what PlayStation is planning to do.

5
dschons
59 mins ago

@Frmknst Another one for your deletion book.

6
themaladroit
51 mins ago

After reading this yesterday:

https://www.gamesradar.com/platforms/playstation/it-took-3-years-for-playstation-to-earn-usd300-million-in-pc-sales-according-to-former-manager-which-makes-the-platform-less-than-half-as-lucrative-as-the-ps4-and-ps5/

It really starts to make sense why Sony is pulling away from PC

7
Perturbator
50 mins ago

@Fiendish-Beaver I doubt going multiplatform was what doomed XBOX. It was more likely a series of blunders during the XBOX One VS PS4 launch that lead to their downfall.

8
NH1402
46 mins ago

They should have released a game at launch to see how it would have compared.

9
Fiendish-Beaver
41 mins ago

Sony's Live Service output should be absolutely everywhere day one, @KoopaTheGamer. The bigger the consumer base, the more chance of a game finding a large audience that sticks around.

Sony's approach to putting their games on PC was far more sensible than Microsoft's insomuch that they would have a period of exclusivity between a game launching on PlayStation to when it then went to PC. However, if you look at how Sony had been doing this more recently, the period of exclusivity was shortening all the time.

The thing about exclusivity is it is not about the individual game, but about the ecosystem; in other words, yes, a game may sell a million more copies by being sold on PC, but Sony only receive 70% of that revenue in the first place, but also, if people really want to play that game and it is entirely exclusive to the PlayStation, then they have to buy a PlayStation in order to buy it, meaning that Sony receive 100% of the money from that game. However, it is not just those extra few games they might sell on the PlayStation, nor indeed the extra consoles they might sell, but it is about once within an ecosystem that new customer will go on to buy further third-party (or indeed first-party) games, which brings in still more revenue for Sony. Each time a person buys a third-party game on a PlayStation Sony get 30% of the revenue from that sale, so it is not about that one individual game that could have sold a few copies on PC, but about all the other games that people buy once within the PlayStation ecosystem. The likelihood is that Sony will make far more money by attracting someone to within their ecosystem than they would by selling it on PC. It is for that reason that Sony are withdrawing from selling their games on PC, and that is also the reason that the Xbox brand has been so severely weakened. You literally do not need an Xbox in order to play an Xbox game...

10
Questionable_Duck
38 mins ago

Interestingly, the pages for Marathon and Helldivers 2 both still explicitly mention that the games are available on Xbox, and they include links to the Microsoft Store. So I guess they're still okay with that

11
Fiendish-Beaver
34 mins ago

I absolutely agree, @Perturbator, but those initial blunders with the Xbox One led to Microsoft deciding to put their games on PC day one. The moment they did that, you could buy a PC and have no requirement for an Xbox whatsoever. Undoubtedly that will have led to fewer sales of Xbox consoles. It may not have been enough to make a huge difference, and we will never know now, but it will have made some difference. Even if it was just a million lost console sales, that is a million consoles, and a million lost customers to the Xbox ecosystem, which in turn is further lost revenue.

As an example, myself and 2 mates watched the abomination of the Xbox One launch and bought PC's instead. Now, truth be told, I bought an Xbox One anyway, but my two mates didn't, and we then bought a multitude of games on PC over the next 7 years. Each game we bought could have been bought within the Xbox ecosystem had we each bought an Xbox instead. The fact that you could also buy Xbox games on Steam meant that is where we were buying them, and each time we did, Microsoft were only getting 70% of the revenue, and not the full 100% had we stayed within the Xbox ecosystem...