Epic Games offered $200m deal to Sony for ‘up to 6’ PC PlayStation ports

Epic Games offered a $200m minimum guarantee to Sony for “4-6” PC PlayStation ports.

That’s according to a confidential PDF document included in the ongoing Epic-Apple trial, which was reportedly briefly uploaded to the case’s public server (and shared on Resetera).

According to the document, Epic Games was at one point targeting all three console platform holders for potential content deals for its PC games store.

The document states that Nintendo talks were essentially “a non-starter”, while opening discussions with Microsoft were complicated by the fact that it was essentially a competitor for content deals, and that its PC Game Pass leader was “against” Epic’s strategy.

On PlayStation, the doc states that Epic was awaiting feedback on its $200m minimum guarantee offer for “4-6 games”, which would see Epic take the hit should those titles generate less revenue than that figure.

Since Sony’s first PC port, Horizon Zero Dawn, debuted on Steam – and its next Days Gone, is also coming to Valve’s platform – it’s possible the company did not take up Epic’s offer.

In a corporate report published last summer, Sony first said it would explore bringing more PlayStation exclusives to PC, following Horizon Zero Dawn’s release on the platform.

Then earlier this year SIE’s president confirmed PlayStation will bring “a whole slate” of games to PC, starting with a Days Gone port set to release this month.

Speaking to GQ, SIE boss Jim Ryan said that the opportunity to bring PlayStation’s IPs to a wider audience, as well as an easier port process, meant that making more games for PC was now “a fairly straightforward decision” for the company.

Asked why SIE is now embracing PC, whereas before it was hesitant to bring its games to the platform, Ryan said: “I think a few things changed.

“We find ourselves now in early 2021 with our development studios and the games that they make in better shape than they’ve ever been before. Particularly from the latter half of the PS4 cycle our studios made some wonderful, great games.

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PlayStation is bringing ‘a whole slate’ of games to PC including Days Gone

Jim Ryan says further ports are “a fairly straightforward decision for us to make”

“There’s an opportunity to expose those great games to a wider audience and recognise the economics of game development, which are not always straightforward. The cost of making games goes up with each cycle, as the calibre of the IP has improved.

“Also, our ease of making it available to non-console owners has grown. So it’s a fairly straightforward decision for us to make.”

PlayStation had a strong start with its first modern PC release, with Horizon Zero Dawn selling 716,000 copies digitally during its August release month, according to Nielsen’s SuperData.

According to another document released as part of the Epic-Apple case, Epic Games spent nearly $12 million securing games for its regular free game giveaways during a nine-month period.