I’ve been having my fingers crossed for a while now that Sony’s recent success with Helldivers 2 (despite their best efforts) and other ports is a sign that we’ll all get to stop having to sit around and kick dirt for a year whenever there’s a new, great exclusive on the PlayStation we can’t play.
Apparently, my wish magic isn’t very potent, since PlayStation joint-CEO Hideaki Nishino has emphasised in an interview with Nikkei (via VGC) that—surprising nobody—consoles are still going to be a central part of a console company’s strategy for success.
“I think that with mobile devices, there are many games that show advertisements, and PCs are difficult to set up, but with PlayStation, once you turn it on, you can experience the content you bought straight away.”
It is with great frustration that I, as someone with nary a console in sight, must grit my teeth and admit: yeah, that is somewhat true. PCs are difficult to set up from scratch—either you shell out a nonsense amount for a prefab, or you engage in the world’s most stressful version of a LEGO set, where you’re not quite sure if you’ve aligned the CPU’s pins right, or whether that loud click/clang was supposed to happen or if you’ve just wasted several hundred quid.
And then there’s the updates, the weird OS features, fretting over kernel-level anti cheat and Denuvo, updating your drivers, and suddenly that $700 price point for the PS5 pro is looking pretty reasonable, if pricier than console gamers are used to. I mean, even here at PC Gamer, we describe a $800 build as penny-saving—penny-saving!
Granted, you’re also getting a computer, and that can do other stuff, too—but still. If you want to play videogames with a videogames box, any console (or a Steam Deck) is just simpler. Experiencing the content you bought “straight away” seems like a stretch, though, since last I checked, most games come with downloads but hey. He’s having to big up the console market after a rough year.
This following paragraph also does scan as a big ‘but’, to me: “We are trying to increase our share of the overall game market by developing content for PCs as well. There is no doubt that consoles will be at the core of our business, but by offering titles for platforms other than consoles, we will reach a wider range of customers.”
Also correct. Sony’s strategy of double-dipping console exclusives into the PC market is working out swimmingly for it—not only does it help generate another round of sales for its big-name blockbusters, it also appears to be part of a scheme to lure your brethren to the dark side with those tasty, tasty sequels.
That’s not me being a cynic, that’s literally what co-CEO Hermen Hulst said: “We’re finding new audiences that are potentially going to be very interested in playing, for example, sequels on the PlayStation platform … We have high hopes that we’re actually able to bring new players into PlayStation at large.”
But also, to push back—maybe we like the complications, yeah? If we want to upscale a turd’s textures (no, literally), or spend over $1,400 on a 4090, or put Yoshi in Resident Evil, then we can do that. The slipshod nonsense is sort of the appeal, even if Microsoft is still trying to get me to use Copilot for some ungodly reason.