PlayStation Studios executive Hermen Hulst has confirmed that the upcoming live-service games for PS4 and PS5 will release day-and-date on PC. Hulst’s statements are part of a recent string of interviews where the executive reiterated the studio’s intent to diversify PlayStation with continued expansion into PC, Mobile, and live-service games.
Sony’s investment into the PC gaming space has been a bit slow compared to Microsoft, but it appears that the company is now all-in on the platform. Over the past two years, major PlayStation exclusives like God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Marvel’s Spider-Man have launched on Steam and the Epic Games Store to great reviews, with more on the way. However, one caveat to enjoying PlayStation titles on PC has been the delay between the PlayStation release and the PC port. Most games that have received the PC treatment were still subject to a multi-year gap since their initial PlayStation launch. But that gap has only gotten smaller as Sony continues to invest in the PC platform.
As far as PlayStation’s upcoming live-service games go, the gap between console and PC releases is entirely gone. In an interview with Julien Chieze on YouTube, Hermen Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, stated that the company’s in-development live-service games–of which there are 12–will all be released on day one for PC. While that is great news for PC gamers awaiting the next big PlayStation game on Steam, it doesn’t mean that single-player games will follow the same trend. Hulst states that live-service games should release day-and-date with PC for the strength and engagement of the player base but confirms that single-player games will still have at least a year gap between the PS5 and PC versions.
PlayStation’s expansion into live-service games is something of a newer development for the company and one that Hulst believes Sony has had little success with in the past. Sony's recent acquisition of Bungie proves that the company is serious about finding success in the live-service space, and player counts are crucial to that success. Games like Destiny live and die by the health of their player base, so it makes sense to let players discover these games as soon as possible and irrespective of their platform of choice.
PlayStation’s relationship with the PC platform is only getting stronger, and it appears that the company is beginning to favor software sales over hardware sales as it continues to release games on PC. The majority of smash-hit PS4 games have found their way to PC over the past two years, and now some huge PS5 games are allegedly on the way, such as Returnal and Horizon Forbidden West. Somehow, even amid multiple high-profile acquisitions and exclusivity wars, PC players find themselves with more games than ever by both Sony and Microsoft.
