$300 million reminds Sony: Shouldn’t “Horizon” stop coming to PC so late?

Last night I was queuing ranked matches while scrolling news and saw a number that woke me right up: over the last three years, Sony has pulled in $300 million in net revenue from PC games. In other words, they moved a bunch of stuff that used to be PS exclusives over to PC and ended up earning a big bag of “tuition money.” No wonder they keep throwing games onto PC, it’s hilarious.

Let’s lay out the numbers first. Feels like a finance class, but it’s pretty interesting. In fiscal year 2020, PC revenue was only $35 million, basically on par with what a hit mobile game makes in a single season. By fiscal year 2021 it had more than doubled to $80 million, which is already at the “four people in a dorm chipping in to buy one PS5” level. And the wildest part is fiscal year 2022, when it suddenly jumped to $250 million in net revenue. The main reasons were Sony acquiring Bungie, the studio behind the Destiny series, and the increasing number of PC ports.

On top of that, foreign media did an even more detailed calculation: they stitched together various quarterly reports and estimated that Sony’s total PC game revenue in FY2022 was about $501 million. But the segment report only shows $250 million, so most people have accepted this explanation: the quarterly reports list “total revenue,” while the segment report lists “net revenue,” meaning what’s left in Sony’s own pocket after deducting marketing, platform cuts, taxes, and so on. The craziest part is that after these deductions, the number is basically cut in half. The PC platforms’ share is harsher than the cafeteria aunt piling vegetables on your plate.

From a player’s perspective, the key point here isn’t how much Sony is making, but whether they’re willing to keep bringing more games to PC in the future. According to Tweak Town’s analysis, if Sony keeps most of its first-party games exclusive to PlayStation and doesn’t share revenue with PC platforms, the gap between total and net revenue will be much smaller, and their books will look better. There’s another issue: when PC platforms take such a big cut, does their current “delay the PC port” strategy actually mean “making more money,” or is it just another way of “losing a bit less”? It’s like asking, “Would you rather buy one takeout and eat till you’re full by yourself, or split an order four ways and have fun together?” It all depends on what you care about more.

For someone like me living in a dorm, I definitely want Sony to bring more games to PC, and not with such a long delay. With games like Horizon and God of War, the story and visuals are amazing, but if they’re completely locked to PS, and in our dorm three people don’t have a console and only one does, the scene turns into “one person living it up in the living room while the other three crowd the doorway watching.” The social experience just shatters. On PC, at least we can hop on voice chat, use Discord, and maybe launch some other multiplayer games on the side. The whole thing turns into a big dorm party, and that’s something a single-player console-on-the-sofa experience can’t really offer.

Looking at the trend, personally I lean toward “releasing on PC expands the player base.” $300 million in net revenue already shows that PC isn’t some tiny side hustle. Even after the brutal platform cut, Sony is still getting to know a large group of players who would never buy a console. For broke students like us in the dorm, one more platform means one more chance to play together, and that alone is worth it. For Sony, it’s extra brand exposure and long-term peripheral revenue. If the choice is between “locking down strict exclusives and squeezing maximum profit from a small group of console players” and “opening up platforms so more people can join the fun,” I’d rather see more former “Sony exclusives” appear in my PC co-op list in the future. Don’t let great games turn into lonely single-player orphans—everyone laughing together until the power cuts out is what really matters.