News JVTech PlayStation has just made a big decision and she will make the Xbox fans smile …
What if the war of the consoles only became a distant memory? PlayStation seems ready to cross a red line, and it is a decision that could well redesign the landscape of video games and make the happiness of its main competitor … Xbox.
For decades, the rule was simple: to play PlayStation exclusives, a PlayStation console was needed. Simple, effective. God of War, The Last of Us, Spider-Man… So many totems that built the Sony fortress, forcing players to choose their camp. But this dogma, formerly engraved in marble, is shattered.
After seeing Microsoft successfully launch some of its flagship titles as Forza Horizon 5 On the PlayStation Store, Sony is preparing to embrace a much more aggressive multiplatform strategy. And the first domino, Helldivers 2is only the beginning of a small revolution.
The end of an era: PlayStation changes its rifle
It is a real change that takes place in Sony’s corridors. Far from the arrogance of the past, the Japanese giant adapts to a new reality on the market. A large part of today’s players, accustomed to service games like Fortnite or free-to-play Available everywhere, cares less and less hardware barriers. They just want to play their favorite games on any screen.
Microsoft has understood this for a long time, and its latest financial results, showing more active users than ever despite the abandonment of certain exclusives, are right.
Fortnite
This strategic turn was confirmed in half-word by Sony during recent communications with its investors. The new doctrine? Less focus on the number of consoles sold and more on the number of active users. As the media reported Windows Centralthe company clearly indicated that it was moving away from a vision centered on equipment.
This means that the objective is no longer only to sell PS5, but clearly to ensure that a maximum of players interact with the PlayStation ecosystem, regardless of the platform.
In this context, see service games like the future Marathon by Bungie (un studio PlayStation !) or FairGame$ Landing on Xbox takes on its full meaning.
Helldivers 2 is only the beginning: what games PlayStation could land on Xbox?
The case Helldivers 2 is emblematic. Published by Sony, his arrival next month on Xbox is no coincidence because his audience is, historically, very fond of shooting games. And this is only the beginning. The eyes are already turning to other nuggets in the PlayStation catalog which could follow the same path!
The most obvious candidates are the games developed by studios second-partythat is to say not held directly by Sony but whose edition is provided by PlayStation. We obviously think of Stellar Blade or at Death Stranding 2the rest of the game of Hideo Kojima, the first opus of which had already released on the game PC PC. For these studios, a port on Xbox represents significant additional income.
Death Stranding 2 : On the Beach
But the slightly crazy dream is to see the “homemade” heavy goods vehicles tumble. Games like Days Gone, Returnal or even the first The Last of Us are shooters who would find an audience designated on Xbox. For Sony, the interest is double. On the one hand, these titles have already experienced well on PlayStation and PC and have probably reached their maximum sales potential on these platforms.
On the other hand, for license games like Spider-Manreaching a new audience would make it easier to absorb high costs paid to the right.
A future without consoles? Sony’s risky bet facing an “open” Xbox
But the real time bomb could come from the next generation of consoles. The rumor, increasingly insistent, draws the contours of a future Xbox which would no longer be a closed box, but a real disguised lounge pc. Imagine a machine capable of natively turning shops like Steam or the Epic Games Store. If this scenario is confirmed, the very concept of console exclusivity would collapse as a card castle.
What good is it to be tested to hold back your games? They would eventually arrive on Xbox machines, in one way or another, via their existing PC versions.
The Last of Us Part II
The wall that PlayStation has taken decades to build would be bypassed, making its current strategy partly obsolete and forcing it to fundamentally rethink its distribution.
Therefore, several strategies are available to Sony:
- The first would be to negotiate directly with Microsoft. The latter, to attract publishers to its own blind, only takes only 12% commission, against 30% from Steam or … on current consoles. An agreement could be financially very advantageous for Sony.
- Another track would be that PlayStation launches its own PC launcher, with its games, its PS Plus service and its cloud. It would then be an expensive and complex approach, but which would ensure total independence.
- The status quo seems the most dangerous. Leaving Steam to become the single video game window on an Xbox “console” would strengthen a monopoly position that nobody, not even Sony, has an interest in seeing to materialize. Launching old classics on Xbox would not flee the PlayStation fans, apart from a few irreducible.
The video game landscape is in full transition, and Sony may have just laid the first stone of its future.
