Sony’s gaming division has released two PlayStation exclusives on PC – Days Gone and Horizon Zero Dawn – and has no plans to stop. In an interview with What’s Up PlayStation, former head of SIE Worldwide Studios Sean Leiden says that the discussion of ports began during his time, that is, no later than fall 2019.
The logic was as follows. Some time after the release of the PlayStation exclusive, the moment comes when the game practically ceases to attract a new audience – sales drop to a very low level. If you release the game on a different platform at this point, PlayStation will definitely not lose anything.
When does that moment come?
According to Leiden – 18-24 months after the release. Under Sean, the issue with the simultaneous release of Sony games on PC and PlayStation was not discussed, but he does not exclude that someday the strategy may change.
Thus, Leiden explains, the PC port solves two problems. First, the former exclusive is reaching a new audience, beating off porting costs and, possibly, earning something from the top.
The actual porting from the PlayStation to the PC, Sean notes, is now not particularly difficult from a technical point of view. A sufficient number of players have hardware that can run games normally for at least PlayStation 4.
Second, PC owners get to know what games PlayStation has to offer. Only a few of them may eventually decide to buy a console, but Sony, Leiden continues, that was enough.
Sean did not elaborate on exactly how Sony chooses the games worth porting to the PC. Leiden’s story about porting games from PlayStation to PC starts at about 01:30:00.
The next PlayStation exclusives brought to PC will be Uncharted The Lost Legacy and Uncharted 4 A Thief’s End. Their release will take place sometime in early 2022.