Sony Interactive Entertainment’s current boss Jim Ryan says he wants PlayStation games to greatly expand its playing audience – reaching hundreds of millions rather than tens of millions.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.Biz, he says a hit game on PS4 or PS5 can hit the 10-20 million unit sales mark but he hopes that will change as gaming keeps becoming more ubiquitous:
“I would also like to see a world where the games that we make at PlayStation can be enjoyed by many tens of millions of people. Perhaps hundreds of millions of people. Right now success with the current console model, a really great PlayStation hit you’re talking ten or twenty million people being able to play that game…
I think some of the art that our studios are making is some of the finest entertainment that has been made anywhere in the world. And to kind-of gate the audience for the wonderful art, wonderful entertainment that our studios are making… to gate the audience for that at 20 or 30 million frustrates me. I would love to see a world where hundreds of millions of people can enjoy those games.”
Sales wise the PlayStation 5 has been a success so far, selling 12.2 million units through to the end of September – nearly double the combined total of 7.46 million units sold of lead rival Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S which were released around the same time.
Recently former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden spoke about one move that the company has done in recent years in an effort to expand its audience – bringing titles to PC.
Layden pioneered the push which led to the likes of former PlayStation AAA exclusives like “Horizon Zero Dawn” and “Days Gone” coming to PC, and tells What’s Up PS that the strategy was designed to show PC gamers what they’re missing out on.
That is why the titles released were three years and two years old respectively because it offered no risk of cannibalising sales for PlayStation and is also why you will likely never see a day-and-date PC release for a PlayStation title:
“The idea of going to PC – and I don’t think you’ll ever see PlayStation do a day and date with PC, but you know, never say never – but the strategy as we were developing it when I was there was that we need to go out to where these new customers are, these new fans could be.
We need to go to where they are because they’ve decided not to go to come to my house so I’ve got to go to their house now. And what’s the best way to go to their house? Why don’t I take one of our top selling games, which has already blown up the marketplace.
It’s already been out there for 18 months or 24 months, there’s no real retail activity against that title, I’m not trading off one sale for another, and bring that to the personal computer platform and let them have an idea – you guys choose not to come to PlayStation but let me show you what you’re missing. It’s a way of outreach, that’s how I see it – trying to get to the people that the platform doesn’t currently speak to.”
That falls in line with comments from PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst who in June told VGC that they are “still early on in our planning for PC” and more titles will come, but the console release would remain the priority for new releases.
The next classic exclusive titles to make the jump will be a combined remastered re-release of 2016’s “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” and 2017’s “Uncharted: The Lost Legacy” with both coming first to PS5 then PC early in 2022. “Uncharted 4” was a major game of year contender in 2016, scoring a 93/100 Metacritic score – second highest in the franchise behind only “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” with a 96/100.
