Yesterday, PlayStation had its State of Play event, a semi-regular showcase of upcoming games from both first and third-party. More so than ever, State of Play featured a ton of multi-platform games, both slated for Windows PC and Xbox Series X|S in addition to PlayStation, which accentuates an evolving industry.
Right now, costs are outstripping growth for players in the console space. Sony has seen a modest increase in users year over year, but the overall pie chart shows Windows PC as the main growth vector for the game industry right now. To that end, PlayStation has begun supporting PC more than ever, with first-party titles like Helldivers 2 demonstrably performing better on Windows than it did on PlayStation itself. Even Sony’s biggest franchises like God of War and Spider-Man have begun hitting PC, and it seems almost inevitable that future PlayStation games will hit a “day and date” PC launch cadence in the future, similar to Xbox.
Things have progressed even more quickly on the Xbox side. Microsoft was the first to begin supporting PC to find new users and revenue, as the console player on the lowest rung on the ladder. That strategy has been quite devastating for Xbox’s hardware sales, which have shown yearly declines at a breakneck pace for several quarters now. Microsoft has started putting its games not only on PC, but now even PlayStation in order to make up for the slow death of its own hardware platform.
Microsoft might legit publish more games on PS5 this year than Sony does. 😂February 12, 2025
IGN Executive Editor Ryan McCaffrey reacted to the PlayStation State of Play to highlight the strange times Xbox finds itself in. Go back five years and tell people the above might actually come true. I would argue that nobody seriously predicted this, but in 2025, it may well and truly be the first year Xbox publishes more games on PlayStation than Sony itself.
Microsoft is bringing long-time multiplatform titles it purchased like Call of Duty and Minecraft to PlayStation as usual, but it’s also bringing first-party made games like Forza Horizon 5, Indiana Jones, and Age of Empires across to PlayStation as well. We’ve heard that even more games are slated for PlayStation in the near and long term future too. Recently, I’ve been hearing from trusted sources that Hellblade 2 could be launching on PlayStation 5 as soon as this April. There’s no reason to think upcoming Xbox games like South of Midnight, Avowed, and even Fable won’t hit PlayStation in the future too, as Xbox deems Windows PC and Xbox Series X|S as a limiting factor to its short term revenue goals. Xbox fans, of course, remain concerned that the viability of long-term investment in the Xbox platform is potentially misplaced.
I just landed and have no idea what happened during the PlayStation stream. How would you rate it?February 12, 2025
Content creator and IGN alumni Destin Legarie put a poll up to gauge reactions to the PlayStation State of Play, with many users voting “D.” There has been frustration in the PlayStation camp over the lack of clarity regarding the firm’s long term roadmap for its first party studios.
PlayStation is publishing open-world ninja fantasy Ghost of Yōtei and Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding 2 this year, but updates on projects from the firm’s heavy hitters like Sony Santa Monica, Insomniac, and Naughty Dog are typically what seems to generate the big headlines. Naughty Dog did recently reveal its next game, which is a sci-fi outing, though, and Insomniac just shipped Spider-Man 2 on PC fairly recently.
But indeed, the elephant in the room is that, all of these games are inevitably coming to Windows PC as well, via Steam or otherwise.
All we’re doing now is basically arguing about timed exclusives. Embrace PC. Get everything.February 13, 2025
Content creator and sauce connoisseur Gaz reacted to the discourse with the inevitable truth: PC has increasingly become the de facto best place to play if you truly want everything. Steam is the only platform that incorporates PC exclusives, PlayStation exclusives, and Xbox exclusives into a single place, and with Steam doubling down on its home-grown gaming Linux distro SteamOS, the possibility of a more traditional “console” for your TV from Steam has become increasingly likely.
As someone who grew up unable to afford a gaming PC for the vast majority of my life, the idea of PlayStation and Xbox simply giving up on their respective ecosystems is a bit depressing. Not everyone can afford a high-powered gaming PC rig, and to go further, not everyone wants one. Windows is only useful in a desktop environment, and a pain to command from a sofa with a controller, although Xbox VP of next-gen Jason Ronald insists the plan is to improve this. At least for right now, Windows is the opposite of intuitive on devices like the ASUS ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go, letalone via a sofa on a TV.
At least for now, there are no signs of PlayStation or Xbox fully bending the knee to PC.
PS5 reached 75M lifetime console units shippedQ3 Sales• Hardware : 9,5M +16% YoY 📈• Software : 95,9M +7% YoY 📈• 129M Active Users • Ghost of Yotei & DeathStranding 2 schedule for FY25https://t.co/2fLzD4FhWV pic.twitter.com/5KeTK86nEhFebruary 13, 2025
Indeed, as gaming news curator Hazzador points out in the tweet above, Sony’s recent financial report revealed that the firm saw +16% year-on-year growth for its hardware delivery, with a +7% growth in console users. The PS5 Pro doubtless helped out Sony here over the holiday period, but it’ll be interesting to see if PlayStation can maintain the momentum given the rise of PC. The X factor for 2025 is Grand Theft Auto 6, which is not launching day and date on PC, and could drive users on Xbox One and PS4 to upgrade in irregularly large amounts.
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Xbox doesn’t release its figures for active console users, but I would guess that they are on the decline at this point, with users flocking to PC in increasing amounts. Xbox hardware has declined non-stop for several quarters, as the firm pretty much stops marketing its products, and didn’t even bother to do serious sales and deals over Black Friday last year. Xbox is still pledging to build next-gen console hardware, though. To that end, I’ve recently been told that Xbox’s next-gen console hardware has now moved past its early pitch stages and has been fully approved and costed all the way up the chain. I doubt we’ll see a reveal of their hardware strategy any time soon, but what is perhaps more interesting to me is how Xbox will seek to entice developers to support its efforts on PC. So far, developers have completely shunned the Microsoft Store for delivering their PC games, which doesn’t seem sustainable if Microsoft is to maintain its own ecosystem.
