In recent weeks we’ve seen an increasing amount of talk surrounding PlayStation’s multi-platform plans and their decision to move away from porting their single-player first-party games to PC. While Sony has yet to share a definitive statement on the matter, notable insiders have revealed the primary reasons for this shift in strategy.

Recently we reported on comments from PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino who offered a diplomatic statement on the company's position with regards to multi-platform releases, stating:

“Our current main policy is that, for single-player games developed in-house, we will further refine the value of the gaming experience that PlayStation can offer. At the same time, we believe it is important for live-service games to reach a wider audience through online multiplayer, so we continue to view releases on both PS5 and PC as the standard.”

While not directly stated, this seemed to suggest that the rumours are indeed true. In response to these latest comments, trusted industry insider Jason Schreier offered more or a direct explanation on the matter, taking to ResetEra to write: “I guess they're not going to lay this out publicly, but there's no ambiguity in their strategy.”

Schreier continued, “During a townhall a few weeks ago, Hermen Hulst told staff that their single-player narrative games will be PlayStation only, and he explained that they were inconsistent with their PC releases, they didn't make enough money, and they want to keep their IP aligned to their own platform. Confirmed this with two people who heard him say it. There's no ‘case by case’ here.”

While we are unlikely to ever hear a definitive position from Sony themselves, Schreier’s statement does give clarity on the matter. PlayStation are quite selective when it comes to sharing sales numbers, but based on various data points it sounds about right.

Regardless of the reason, it seems like we have now gotten a pretty conclusive answer on the matter – even if it’s not from the horse’s mouth.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of Sony’s strategy shift? Were sales the main reason, or was it a case of compounding factors? Let us know your thoughts down below.

Over the past console generation, we’ve seen Sony embrace the notion of releasing some of its first-party titles to other platforms later on down the line – particularly on PC. While this has yielded some success, it seems the console maker might be going back towards exclusivity, with insiders claiming that future multi-platform releases might be limited to live-service titles.

According to multiple insiders, Sony might be moving away from bringing their single-player games to PC, with known leaker Jason Schreier recently claiming that “the sense I'm getting is that they're backing away from putting their exclusive console stuff like traditional single-player stuff on PC.”

Other leakers echoed the sentiment, with SneakerSO writing “there are loads of changes happening now that we'll see increasingly over the next 3-4 years that are more in line with what folks preferred from them.”

Another known insider – NateDrake – put it in more basic terms, claiming that “Sony is shifting their PC strategy, absolutely.”

While Sony themselves have rarely shared official sales data for their games on PC, previous leaks have shown that most single player titles have failed to hit 1 million on the platform.

As such, it appears as though Sony has determined that the brand value of PlayStation as a machine for exclusives is more important than getting an extra couple hundred thousand sales from PC users.

Of course, live-service titles will remain day-and-date, and so we will have to wait and see how this all pans out.

KitGuru says: What do you think of this supposed strategy shift? Were they always going to go back towards exclusives? Is this a direct response to the next Xbox seemingly being a PC? Let us know down below.