PlayStation’s Live Service Games Will Release On PC and Console Simultaneously

Sony is a powerhouse of solid IPs. These include the massively successful series God of War, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, Horizon, and so much more.

If anyone is familiar with the history of gaming consoles, they will also know about the console wars that raged through the late 90s and early 2000s with Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox leading the way. Somehow Xbox was overtaken by PlayStation by the late 2000s.

But now Microsoft is looking to give serious competition to Sony with the release of the next-gen consoles like Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and Xbox Game Pass. But what gave Sony real nightmares was Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $69 billion.

PlayStation has since been diversifying its lineup with not only single-player games but also upcoming live service games, which are a great source of revenue in today’s gaming sphere. Now, PlayStation Head Hermen Hulst has stated in an interview that PlayStation’s live service games will arrive on PC as well as consoles on day one.

Major Takeaways:

• PlayStation’s live service games will release on consoles and PC on the same day/date, or with a very small gap at least.
• PlayStation has many live service games in development.

Speaking to popular French YouTuber Julien Chièze, Hermen Hulst stated that live service games by PlayStation will be “day and date with PC and console.”

This clearly indicates that PlayStation’s live service games will release on PC alongside their console counterparts. This does not come as a surprise considering how PlayStation has shown interest in porting their games to PC, going so far as to create a separate PlayStation PC label for its ported exclusives.

However, with Microsoft upping their game with acquisitions and Game Pass, and various other initiatives, PlayStation also has to diversify and seek a larger audience in order to stay toe to toe with the competition.

On that note, Hermen Hulst also stated that although PlayStation’s first-party games will not release simultaneously on PC and consoles, they will arrive on PC about a year or more later. The gap will depend from project to project but they will arrive on PC eventually nonetheless.

This arriving on PC after 1 year somewhat lines up with a supposed industry insider’s speculations that we reported on previously. It is no secret that PlayStation is diversifying not only its output but also its audience.

The console exclusivity business has indubitably been frowned upon for many a year, many considering it to be the bane of gaming. Recently, this has started to ease up from PlayStation’s side, as Sony has realized the market potential of porting their games over to PC, and has followed up with ports of its first-party exclusives such as Days Gone, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and God of War, among others.

Currently, we are aware of only Jetpack Interactive’s live service game for PlayStation, but that is not all in its portfolio. In an interview for Axios, Hermen Hulst said:

We’re also diversifying now. And we have stood up 12 projects in total in the live ops multiplayer space.”

For those unaware, live ops is another term for live service games, games that are designed to be supported for years after release, and are an important source of income for developers. An important and popular example of live service games is Fortnite, which has still not slowed down despite so many years.

The interesting thing here, however, is that PlayStation has ‘stood up’ 12 live service projects. That certainly is a lot. While this does not mean all 12 are in development, this, however, does indicate how dedicated PlayStation is toward its live service initiative.

Hulst also said,

We’re not excluding bringing some of our beloved existing franchises into live games.”

This means that not all of PlayStation’s future live service games will be new IPs but may also be iterations of their current existing IPs such as the Horizon or God of War IPs.

PlayStation has a lot to face going forward. With Microsoft becoming stronger and stronger, PlayStation needs to up its game as well and diversify its output. Perhaps this competition will also largely improve the quality of games coming forward, however, only time will tell what happens.