Spider-Man Files Indicate Sony May Be Fully Committed to PC Gaming

Sony appears to be shifting its marketing strategy to position its video game division as a hybrid console-PC corporation with the release of high-profile PC versions of formerly exclusive games like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn. Recently discovered datamined files that refer to a PlayStation PC game launcher may indicate that the corporation is copying Xbox in an effort to enter the computer-based industry.

Dataminers discovered files that mentioned a "PlayStation PC Launcher" in Sony's most recent port of Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered in the days after the game's release, according to VGC. Source was unable to independently authenticate the files, despite the publication's claims that it had checked and verified them. This, however, comes after hints from a web of files obtrusively placed inside Sony's most recent transfer that suggested the corporation would allow customers to link their PlayStation Network accounts to their PC games.

Whether this implies Sony intends to develop its own PC launcher and store page and then make its games exclusive to that platform is still up in the air. We hope the firm will take a lesson from others' mistakes because customers really "enjoy" opening up a game on Steam or the Epic Store just to have it point to another, slow launcher. Similar to its rivals, Sony has a lot of distance to make up. With the merging of its PC and Xbox Live accounts, Microsoft is already well ahead of Sony.

It's evident that there is a demand for PlayStation-exclusive PC titles, and the firm is making its goals known by maintaining a separate PlayStation for PC page. The platform's top selling were Sony's God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn. The business demonstrated back in May that the former sold almost 971,000 copies in just two months of its availability. In contrast, during the last 1.5 years, the latter has sold slightly fewer than 2.4 million copies. Sony anticipates PC game sales to surpass $300 million this year. By 2025, the business reportedly plans to have 50% of its game collection available on PC.

Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered is already a tremendous hit, as seen by the number of continuous players, which peaked on Sunday at about 66,000 people swinging around Manhattan.

Nevertheless, there have only been a few Sony-exclusive titles made accessible on PC in comparison to its rivals; there are just six first-party games that can be found on both Steam and the Epic Store. Any new launcher would need to include third-party games as well to be useful, while it's feasible that Sony might give a PC launcher some depth by including the Xbox Game Pass-like features from Playstation Plus.

It might be a method for the business to genuinely generate interest for its exclusive content given how difficult it has been to satisfy demand for PS5s. Despite the company's stated intention to significantly boost output this year, switching to PC versions will still make its games much more widely available.

According to executives, by entering the PC market, they would have access to a "far wider" sector of gamers as opposed to their current "extremely small" one. So, no big deal. The length of time Sony has delayed granting PC players access to the company's library is surprising. That may be due to Microsoft's stronghold in PCs, which makes it its main adversary in the gaming console market. While the expense of creating games has increased, according to Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive, "our simplicity of making it [exclusive titles] available to non-console owners has grown." (via: gizmodo)