PlayStation is looking inwards for the path forward. As much as that sounds like it’s seeking enlightenment, Sony is simply restricting games to its platform and services, all the while hiking prices for existing customers.
On Monday, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that Sony execs were cutting back on releasing first-party single-player games to PC. Over the last few years, Sony developed a strategy where it would launch its games first on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 and then, after a year or two, bring them to PC. Now, according to anonymous sources that spoke to Bloomberg, PlayStation is ending that practice. Sorry, you won’t see Ghost of Yotei on PC anytime soon.
The report confirms earlier rumors that PlayStation was planning to restrict games to its consoles. Multiplayer games, such as Bungie’s recent Marathon extraction shooter, will remain multi-platform. Some Sony execs were concerned that having their games available on other platforms diluted the PlayStation brand and would lead to lost hardware revenue. Microsoft, with new leadership at Xbox (sorry, I mean XBOX) is still undecided about exclusivity with its first-party games on PC and consoles.
Keeping players in its console ecosystem also means you can dictate prices across your platforms. On Monday, Sony announced it was hiking prices of PlayStation Plus subscriptions across select markets, including the U.S. A one-month subscription now costs $11, which is $1 more than before. A three-month subscription comes out at $28, a $3 hike. Sony blamed “ongoing market conditions” for the upped subscription fees.
Starting May 20, PlayStation Plus prices for new customers will increase in select regions. Due to ongoing market conditions, prices will start at $10.99 USD / €9.99 EUR / £7.99 GBP for 1-month subscriptions and $27.99 USD / €27.99 EUR / £21.99 GBP for 3-month subscriptions.…
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) May 18, 2026
While the price hikes will only affect new and returning subscribers, it will make a pricey system even more expensive across the board. From PlayStation’s perspective, it makes sense. The company will likely have a harder time selling consoles considering recent price hikes that pushed the base slim-model PS5 to $600 and the PlayStation 5 Pro to an astronomical $900. Considering how players can’t access online multiplayer without paying, it’s unsurprising that the company now has to refocus on squeezing existing customers.
While Sony has not released any metrics for how well its games sold on PC, we can assume many have not performed all that well. Of the 14 first-party single-player titles available on Steam, only Horizon Zero Dawn: Remastered, Marvel’s Spider-Man, God of War, and Ghost of Tsushima broke more than 50,000 top peak current players. According to data available on SteamDB, Ghost of Tsushima ranked highest among all these games with more than 77,000 peak concurrent players at release in July 2024. Meanwhile, Spider-Man 2 hit just 28,000 peak concurrents at launch on PC in early 2025.
The more important thing for PlayStation is whether there will be new single-player games worth sticking to consoles for. Marvel’s Wolverine is set to arrive this year, and it’s been confirmed for PS5 only. Other future exclusive titles may be built for the upcoming PlayStation 6 and its supposed handheld version. If Sony wants players to stick around and pay higher prices, it needs to give them a little more hope for the future than the prospect of ever-more expensive hardware and software services.
