PC gamers who had hopes of playing Ghost of Yotei sometime in the future will have to keep hoping. Sony is reportedly ending its plans to bring more PlayStation exclusives to PC, although it hasn't yet given a reason why.
Sony will no longer port its PlayStation exclusives to PC, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. The company didn't provide any reasons why it will stop releasing its games for PC, but the report says it could change its stance sometime in the future.
Sony didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Why did Sony change its mind on porting its games to PC?
A likely reason for the shift in strategy is the global memory shortage.
The surge in RAM prices has made hardware manufacturers rethink their strategies in recent months. Sony reportedly delayed the PlayStation 6 release to 2029 due to the shortage, meaning the PS5's life cycle would last nine years instead of the seven-year cycles of the PS3 and PS4. A longer lifecycle would require Sony to sell more PS5 consoles, and console exclusives would help, especially as its competitors shift their focus.
Asha Shar, the new Xbox boss, confirmed on Thursday that the next Xbox console, codenamed Project Helix, will play PC games as well as Xbox games. This would hamper Sony's exclusivity strategy. Also, Valve is set to release its Steam Machine later this year after it was delayed due to the shortage. This new hardware will play only PC games, but it's designed to be set up in the living room, connected to a TV. This puts the Steam Machine in direct competition with the PS5.
Valve's upcoming Steam Machine will make it easier to play PC games on a living room TV. Valve
Video games as a whole are also facing a shift in consumer demand, according to a new industry analysis by Epyllion. Money typically reserved for video games is now being spent on other things, such as gambling, crypto and pornography.
Recent sales data also shows that PlayStation exclusives have not been selling well on PC, GameIndustry.biz reports. Since Sony delays the PC release of its exclusives by a couple of years, sales of those titles aren't as strong, suggesting that interest in those games was already satisfied when they came out on PlayStation.
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