Shawn Layden Defends PC Ports as Sony Reportedly Limits Them

Shawn Layden, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment of America, defended the decision to release major PlayStation narrative games on PC. In a recent interview he said Sony began porting top titles to PC in 2020, typically about a year after the PlayStation release, to expand awareness of characters and worlds among players who did not own PlayStation hardware.

Layden recalled that the original aim was not short-term revenue. ‘The PC thing, in my mind at the time, was not to make money, frankly. It was, How do I get my intellectual property in front of people who wouldn’t normally see it? How do I get the world of Horizon to be seen by people who aren’t in the PlayStation world?’ He said putting games on PC was intended to widen the audience ahead of adaptations into film, television and comics.

On the question of hardware sales, Layden argued delayed PC releases did not reduce console purchases because players willing to wait for a PC version were unlikely to buy a PlayStation specifically for that title. He cited examples of players who waited many months for PC availability rather than buying a new console.

Reports say Sony plans to restrict future PC releases mainly to online multiplayer and live-service titles and to keep major single-player, story-driven games console-only. The company has not issued a public, company-wide confirmation of such a policy change.

Reported reasons for the shift include uneven quality across PC ports and internal evaluations that some ports did not yield revenue sufficient to cover development and optimization costs. Ports often require additional work to ensure controls, performance and feature parity across varied PC hardware.

PlayStation franchises that reached wider audiences after appearing off-console include Horizon, Uncharted, Gran Turismo and The Last of Us. Layden said making those games available to more players on PC helped build audiences for adaptations beyond gaming.

Whether Sony will scale back PC releases for narrative blockbusters and how any change would affect planned sequels or media projects remains unclear.