PC players have recently been enjoying a slew of PlayStation Studios releases on their gaming platform of choice. Games like God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and the recently released Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered were all once exclusive to Sony's PlayStation consoles but have now been ported over to the PC. They're still PlayStation console exclusives, of course, but leveraging the PC audience with its titles is a smart move too. With this new direction Sony is taking, more people can play the great single-player experiences that PlayStation studios have produced.
But despite this more PC-oriented mindset, one thing that Sony does not address is that it takes its time releasing its titles on computers. People might attribute this to reasons such as the development time and console exclusivity, but there are several benefits Sony enjoys by "delaying" its titles. Some of these pros may be more obvious than others, while some seem to be driven purely by a business mindset.
Paying For PlayStations
The most obvious reason the company delays its PC releases can be found in its name: it has to sell PlayStation consoles. This feeds into the market where exclusives increase the demand for consoles. By delaying its releases on PC, Sony ensures that anyone who wants to play its games first has to buy a PlayStation. Exclusives such as Bluepoint Games' remake of Demon's Souls, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and the upcoming God of War Ragnarok have played a part in the number of PS5s that have been sold and how difficult it is to buy Sony's console nowadays.
By focusing its initial releases on the PlayStation first, PlayStation Studios can make full use of the consoles' gimmicks and features. In the case of the PlayStation 5, these include things such as ray tracing and the DualSense's haptic feedback function. Developing for a console also provides PlayStation Studios with a static platform to work with. It is much easier to develop for a console that has a set frame rate and graphical capabilities than for multiple computers that run different specs.
Power To The PC
Developing a game for the PC is an entirely different beast altogether. While all video games are created using computers, the fact of the matter is that PC games have to work on multiple setups for them to be successful. While it does make optimizing for different setups more difficult, it also means developers can take full advantage of the latest PC hardware and software. This means mid or high-end PC owners can benefit from features such as increased graphical fidelity and improved frame fates.
If done properly, a PC port can easily become the definitive version of a video game. For PlayStation Studios, the PC ports of God of War, Days Gone, and Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered have all enjoyed the aforementioned features along with some perks of their own. On the other hand, there are also bad PC ports that can't provide the bare minimum to make the experience enjoyable.
A Video Game's Rebirth
Developing for PC and consoles at the same time can result in issues cropping up on both platforms. It can even cause delays in the production and release process. By separating the development of each platform, game studios can focus on each release and better ensure that the versions of the games they are working on makes full use of the platform's capabilities. The extra time it takes for PlayStation Studios to develop games for the PC also has a hidden benefit in that it increases player demand for the games. Taking 2022's PC release of God of War as an example, the January release brought a second life to an almost 4-year-old game.
PC players were more than happy to pay full price for the aged title, and God of War saw a viewer increase on streaming platforms like Twitch. The "delay" breathed new life into a single-player game that would have otherwise not seen a resurgence if it was released on PC at the same time it debuted on the PlayStation 4. For many, releasing God of War on PC also didn't feel like a cash grab because the franchise was never released to platforms outside the PlayStation group of consoles before.
Releasing PlayStation Studios titles also increases the demand for other titles to be ported over to the PC. The original God of War trilogy, the critically-acclaimed Bloodborne, and even the upcoming God of War: Ragnarok are all titles that PC players want ported over to their platform. PlayStation Studios might eventually release these titles on PC, but not until enough time has passed from the initial PlayStation release (barring older games, of course, which require resources that the company may not want to allocate." The "delay" in PC releases may seem understandable and at times downright unpleasant, but at the end of the day, Sony is a company that has to make money off its investments.