Surprise. #DaysGone comes to PC this spring. Stay tuned for more details. pic.twitter.com/vcSYSKgOtn
— Bend Studio (@BendStudio) February 23, 2021
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”
PlayStation will bring “a whole slate” of games to PC, starting with a Days Gone port this spring.
That’s according to a new GQ interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan, in which he states that the opportunity to bring PlayStation‘s IPs to a wider audience, as well as an easier port process, means that making more games for PC is now “a fairly straightforward decision”.
Asked why SIE has now embracing PC, where as 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.
“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.
Reflecting on Horizon’s PC reception, Jim Ryan told GQ he’d looked at not just the response from PC players, but also the existing PlayStation community, who he claimed had not reacted unfavourably to the release.
“We assessed the exercise in two ways. Firstly, in terms of the straightforward success of the activity of publishing the game on PC, people liked it and they bought it,” he said.
“We also looked at it through the lens of what the PlayStation community thought about it. There was no massive adverse reaction to it. So we will continue to take mission steps in this direction.”
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.
As well as Horizon, former PlayStation 4 exclusives Death Stranding and Detroit: Become Human also released for PC last summer, after their exclusivity deals expired.
Mark Healey, a co-founder of Sony-owned studio Media Molecule, told VGC last year that a PC version of Dreams wasn’t currently in development, but that it would be “great” to release one in the future.
Developer Guerrilla Games announced Horizon 2: Forbidden West for PS5 last June ahead of a planned 2021 release date. Later, Sony confirmed it will also release the game for PS4. Prior to the sequel’s announcement, VGC revealed that PlayStation and Guerrilla are planning a Horizon Zero Dawn trilogy.