I’ve been talking about Sony and their PC releases for over four years now. What was once optimism has slowly decayed over the years into despair, bafflement and anger as Sony continues to make mistake after mistake. I thought this had peaked last year with Sony’s terrible PC port of the The Last of Us Part 1, their poor marketing for Returnal and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and their steadfast refusal to port the game that PC gamers really want from them, that being Bloodborne. However, Sony have somehow managed to top themselves with the debacle that erupted over the past month and, as of the writing of this article, have not fully rectified. Therefore, I thought it time to explain how Sony’s continually stupid decisions when it comes to their PC strategy is enraging me.
When it came to PC this year, Sony actually started off surprisingly strong. Their first major title to be released on PS5 and PC simultaneously, Helldivers 2, was released near the beginning of February and turned out to be one of the megahits of the year with Sony stating that it has become their fastest selling PlayStation title ever! With PC sales making up a majority, it was perhaps the clearest sign that Sony should take the PC market seriously and make significant changes to their strategy in order to both satisfy PC gamers and to become more profitable. Additionally, people were quite happy to learn that Ghost of Tsushima was being ported and, while it was nowhere near the megahit that Helldivers 2 was, Sony’s release of Horizon Forbidden West on PC proved quite successful.
So what does Sony do with all of this success? How about flushing away all of the goodwill that they’d managed to scrape back from last year. I remember seeing the announcement that Sony would be requiring all PC players of Helldivers 2 to create a PSN account in order to keep playing and shrugging, thinking to myself “It’s annoying but what can you do.” Little did I know that this was no mere case of annoyance but a massive issue. You see, I, and probably many other people, was not aware how few places had access to PSN. We’re talking about two thirds of the world’s countries being unable to legally create a PSN account! If you’ve been playing Helldivers 2 since launch in one of these countries then Sony’s attitude to you was basically to screw off.
As you might imagine, PC players did not take this lying down and extensive protests over the course of the weekend eventually managed to convince Sony to retreat from this plan. However, while this may certainly seem a victory, the reality is that the inherent problem remains. That’s because, a day before Sony backed down, Sony delisted the game in all regions where PSN was unavailable and, as of the writing of this article, has yet to restore access. In fact, things have gotten worse with the revelation that Ghost of Tsushima, which only requires PSN for its multiplayer, is being similarly delisted from those countries and territories. Of all of Sony’s stupid decisions with regards to their PC strategy, it’s this situation that I find to be the most enraging to me.
How should Sony have handled this then? My first recommendation would be not to enforce mandatory PSN accounts but, since they clearly don’t want to do that, my next recommendation would be to expand the number of countries where PSN is available. The inclusion of the PC market should assist this expansion which can benefit the console and minimise the negative repercussions for PC gamers. However, it’s also clear to me that Sony doesn’t give a damn about what I or anyone outside of the company thinks or else they would not have made or continue to make such serious blunders and ignore what the consumers actually want. This advice will be summarily ignored by Sony, just as all of my other articles have, but I think it’s important that we as consumers continue to fight against any attempts to subdue us and the first stage is to have information, something I hope this article is able to provide. Will Sony manage to win back the PC community’s trust? It’s possible but, from where I’m standing, it seems highly unlikely.
Let me know what you think about this situation, whether Sony’s stupid decisions on PC are similarly enraging you, how you think they can improve their strategy in the PC market, how you responded when you heard about the PSN requirement, whether you knew PSN was so restricted worldwide and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.