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Sony has hinted a number of times in recent years that it feels restricted by PlayStation hardware. In an interview late last year, group president Jim Ryan said that he’s “frustrated” that the company’s first-party games reach a relatively small audience. “I think some of the art our studios are making is some of the finest entertainment in the world, and to gate the audience frustrates me,” he admitted. “I’d love to see a world where hundreds of millions of people can enjoy those games.”

Now, speaking as part of a corporate strategy meeting, Sony bigwig Kenichiro Yoshida has hinted that the company’s acquisition of Bungie represents a “major step forward in becoming more multiplatform”. As previously announced, the Destiny developer will retain its independence adjacent to PlayStation Studios, meaning that its games will continue to launch on all viable platforms – including Xbox, PC, and mobile.

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Yoshida also touched briefly on PlayStation’s emerging PC business, explaining that the company aims to “provide access to our games to as many users as possible” and it’ll be “rolling out” more PlayStation Studios titles onto storefronts like Steam and the Epic Games Store in the future. Releases like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn have already proven incredibly successful on PC, and Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection is the next project confirmed to be making the transition.

It does feel like Sony is becoming increasingly platform agnostic, but this is a tricky balancing act for it to manage. Obviously there’s money to be made on other platforms – the Sony San Diego developed MLB The Show 22 has become one of America’s biggest sports series since going multiformat – but these tentpole exclusives are widely considered selling points for the PlayStation hardware. It’ll be interesting to see if it can maintain that competitive advantage while also looking outside of its own ecosystem.

[source irwebmeeting.com]