Sony’s latest PlayStation 5 advert has revived the exclusivity language largely absent since the console’s launch, following reports that the company has decided to stop porting its major single-player games to PC.
Sony’s new ‘Only on PS5’ ad is now being served across social media and features footage of some of its biggest recent and upcoming games. Notably, the phrase ‘PlayStation 5 exclusive’ appears throughout the footage.
The games featured in the video are Marvel Wolverine, Saros, Gran Turismo 7, God of War Laufey, Astro Bot, and Ghost or Yotei.
Notably, none of these games have been ported to PC in the past, nor have any announced upcoming ports (however, Gran Turismo 7 did receive a PlayStation 4 version back in 2022). Therefore, the advert strongly suggests that none of the games will come to PC in the near future.
As noted by ResetEra user Red Kong, none of the games featured previously used “only on PlayStation” or the term “exclusive” in any of their marketing, with the exception again being Gran Turismo 7, which was originally announced as a PS5 exclusive.
Second-party games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Phantom Blade 0 were advertised as PlayStation 5 exclusives, however.
‘Only on PS5’ ad follows claims Sony is ending PC ports
The new exclusivity marketing follows a Bloomberg report earlier this year claiming Sony was pulling back from its plan to release upcoming games on PC, with future single-player games set to become PS5 exclusives.
Sony later appeared to corroborate the report by removing all mention of bringing its first-party titles to PC from an annual business report.
In recent years, the company has ported its games to PC after their PS5 versions. However, PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst is said to have told staff in May that single-player titles from PlayStation, such as Ghost of Yotei, Saros and Marvel’s Wolverine, would remain console exclusives going forward.
While PC players celebrated Sony’s move to bring more of its titles to PC, the delayed release schedule and often undercooked ports meant that the PC versions of some PlayStation titles sold surprisingly few copies.
According to Bloomberg, “A faction within PlayStation has also expressed concern that releasing their games on PC risks damaging the console’s brand and will hurt sales of the PlayStation 5 and its successors, according to the people familiar with Sony’s inner workings.”
