- Sony’s confirmed pullback from PC ports will hurt its presence in regions with low console adoption rates.
- Death Stranding 2’s PC port was quite successful in China.
- First-party games like Saros would find a more limited audience because they would remain locked to the PS5.
Recent reports suggested that Sony cancelled several notable first-party PC ports amid official confirmations that it’s returning to single-player exclusives moving forward. The shift occurred after many Steam ports failed to sell over a million copies.
The damage to the brand’s reputation was also obvious, but new analysis shows that abandoning first-party ports might also do more harm than Sony realizes. The gaming company’s presence across regions with low console adoption rates could take a massive hit.
Why it matters: Sony is refocusing on exclusives after exploring single-player PC ports and finding only limited success, but such a move could shrink global reach and long-term revenue.
The analysis by Alinea Analysis’ Rhyss Elliot shows that Sony’s pullback from Steam ports impacts regions like China, where PC gaming has historically dominated compared to consoles.
Death Stranding 2’s Steam release was extremely successful, with over 42% of its copies selling in China alone. Stellar Blade is another IP whose PC port was quite successful in the region.
While there’s no concrete way to count total Chinese Steam players, previous estimates have put the figure above a staggering 30 million. Chinese is also the second most used language (21.85%) behind English (39.48%), as per Steam’s last hardware survey.
Many PlayStation IPs could lose visibility in other regions where the console adoption rates remain low. Meanwhile, first-party titles that struggle to pull players on PS5 would have little to no chance to break even without PC exposure.
These developments would also give Microsoft the perfect chance to swoop in and claim local gaming audiences in those regions.
Another tidbit worth noting is that PC ports have boosted sales on consoles instead of hurting them, with PS5 sales of titles like DS2 and Stellar Blade seeing a noticeable jump. So, a complete abandonment of single-player PC ports might not be a good idea.
Do you think Sony’s decision to abandon PC ports of its single-player offerings will cause its presence to decline? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussion on the Tech4Gamers forum.
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Shameer Sarfaraz has previously worked for eXputer as a Senior News Writer for several years. Now with Tech4Gamers, he loves to devotedly keep up with the latest gaming and entertainment industries. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and years of experience reporting on games. Besides his passion for breaking news stories, Shahmeer loves spending his leisure time farming away in Stardew Valley. VGC, IGN, GameSpot, Game Rant, TheGamer, GamingBolt, The Verge, NME, Metro, Dot Esports, GameByte, Kotaku Australia, PC Gamer, and more have cited his articles.
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