Sony As we get closer and closer to the next-generation of console hardware, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the lines between those consoles – once rigid and inflexible – are starting to erode.
Cross-platform play is now not only common, but basically expected. There’s been talk of Xbox bringing Game Pass to mobile, and former Xbox exclusives like Cuphead and Ori and the Blind Forest are either now on or coming to Nintendo’s machine.
Santa Monica StudioYet while PC, Xbox, and Nintendo users are enjoying more freedom across platforms than ever before, PlayStation remained relatively rigid until recently, when it softened its stance on crossplay. It doesn’t look like the company is stopping there when it comes to tearing down former boundaries, though.
Shawn Layden, Chairman of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, revealed to Bloomberg in a recent Gamescom interview that PlayStation is considering bringing its first-party games to a “wider install base”, suggesting that the company is willing to branch out and put some of its former exclusive games onto other platforms – most likely PC.
Layden told Bloomberg:
We must support the PlayStation platform — that is non-negotiable. That said, you will see in the future some titles coming out of my collection of studios, which may need to lean into a wider install base.
It seems incredibly unlikely that we’d ever see the likes of Spider-Man, God of War, or Horizon Zero Dawn grace a Nintendo or Microsoft platform, which leaves PC as the only viable option for a version of PlayStation that wants to expand its future output to a wider audience.
Bloomberg implied that what Layden said was more in reference to “multiplayer titles designed to be played on personal computer” rather than single-player experiences like Uncharted or The Last Of Us, but it’s still not entirely beyond the realms of possibility that PlayStation could start bringing select exclusives to PC – perhaps in an effort to keep pace with Xbox .
Back in March, it was announced that three formerly PlayStation-exclusive titles – Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human would be coming to PC via the Epic Games Store.
Insomniac GamesAdmittedly, this development was more to do with studio Quantic Dream than PlayStation, but there’s every chance that the move has set an interesting precedent for company going forward. Watch this space.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via [email protected]
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.