Sony is telling its investors to prepare for a big PC gaming windfall in the coming year. Really big.
In a business segment briefing for shareholders today, one slide showed off Sony's net sales from PC games thus far, highlighting how titles such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, Days Gone, and God of War had brought in $80 million in the last fiscal year
But the gaming giant expects more to come, and is telling them to expect a whopping $300 million in net sales on PC in the coming fiscal year ending March 31, 2023.
That's a massive jump, especially for a gaming hardware manufacturer that has only just in recent years dipped its toe into the PC space with real seriousness. What's more, it's not fully clear where that chunk of change is coming from. At the moment, Sony's only announced plan for PC is Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection, which still doesn't have a release date.
What's most likely happening here is that Sony has high expectations of Bungle, with its acquisition of the Destiny 2 maker expected to close by the end of this year. With Bungle being privately held, we don't have a good idea of what it brings in, though analyst Michael Pacier has speculated it's around $200 million in revenue a year across all sources
But it's likely Sony's PC ambitions extend beyond just bungle. A slide later in the presentation shows that Sony expects approximately 15% to 20% of its releases in the coming year to be on PC, with that percentage increasing to closer to 30% by the end of 2025. Plus, there's its recent moves like its introduction of the PlayStation PC brand and seeming interest from many of PlayStation's internal studios in bringing their games to the platform. So far, that interest is working out well for PC players, with God of War running reasonably well on machines. Let's hope Uncharted runs similarly or better. Now give us Blood-borne?
Following the launch of God of War on PC, Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Bar log has revealed that many of PlayStation's own studios helped convince Sony that it was a "really good idea" to bring its biggest exclusives to PC.
Speaking to Game Informer, Bar log - who served as game director on 2018's God of War - was asked what insight he may have into Sony's decision to put a greater focus on the PC market.
"I think it was the collective of studios all over saying this is a really good idea," Bar log said. "We should be looking into this. Eventually, I think it reached that tipping point. When we had sent so many suggestion box suggestions that they were like, 'I’m tired of hearing all this. Fine, we’ll do this.' It’s a process. We’re still figuring it out as a company and as individual studios how to do this and what the process and strategy will be."
Sony's push into the PC market began in 2020 when it announced it would be bringing Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition to the platform. While other games that were either funded or published by Sony had already made their way over, like Death Stranding, Horizon was a true first-party PlayStation Studios game that would no longer be exclusive.
Following Horizon, Sony released Days Gone on PC in 2021 and is gearing up to make Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection available to PC players in early 2022
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