Sony drew a definitive line on May 18, 2026. PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst gathered staff at a company town hall and made one thing perfectly clear. Narrative single-player games from PlayStation Studios will no longer be ported to PC.
For PC players who loved Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man, and God of War on Steam, the pipeline is now closed. And PC gamers worldwide are already reacting loudly.
What Hermen Hulst Told PlayStation Staff
The story was first reported by Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier in March 2026. But the May 18 town hall made it official inside Sony’s walls.
Hulst’s message was direct. Story-driven, first-party single-player games from PlayStation Studios will now remain PlayStation console exclusives and will not see future PC releases.
Schreier posted on Bluesky immediately after the meeting, confirming that Hulst told staff the company’s “narrative single-player games will now be PlayStation exclusive.” It was the first time a senior executive directly confirmed what Bloomberg’s reporting had been pointing to for months.
Sony has not made a formal public statement about the policy change. The company is unlikely to spell it out at a press event. But a CEO-level confirmation at a company-wide meeting carries weight that cannot be easily walked back.

The Sales Numbers Sony Could Not Ignore
Sony’s shift is not sentimental. It is entirely driven by data.
Early PC ports of PlayStation games performed well, with Horizon Zero Dawn capturing a 22% PC player share, God of War at 14%, and Marvel’s Spider-Man also at 14%.
Then things started sliding.
| PlayStation PC Port | PC Player Share |
|---|---|
| Horizon Zero Dawn | 22% (~4M players) |
| Marvel’s Spider-Man | 14% (~3.8M players) |
| God of War (2017) | 14% (~3.5M players) |
| Ghost of Tsushima | 11% (~2.1M players) |
| Horizon Forbidden West | 7% |
| God of War Ragnarok | 6% |
| Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 | 5% |
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 peaked at just 28,117 concurrent players on Steam and sold roughly 700,000 copies on PC, despite moving 16 million units on PS5.
Research firm Newzoo identified the core problem with the whole strategy. PlayStation games ported to PC after their console launch typically account for around 13% of total players in the first three months. When comparable triple-A titles launch simultaneously on PC and console, PC contributes closer to 44% of players across the same window.
The contrast with Helldivers 2 makes the point impossible to dismiss. That multiplayer title launched simultaneously on PS5 and PC and hit 458,208 concurrent players on Steam. Sony clearly noticed the gap between story-driven ports and day-one multiplayer launches.
Which PS5 Games Are Now Locked to Console
This is where the decision hits hardest for PC players.
Ghost of Yotei, Saros, Marvel’s Wolverine, and Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet are all confirmed to be PS5 exclusives with no planned PC release. The Ghost of Yotei situation stings the most. According to four separate sources familiar with PlayStation’s plans, its PC version was already in an advanced stage of development with a 2026 target release date before Sony cancelled it entirely.
That work is now shelved with no path forward.
Not everything is off the table for PC players, though. Multiplayer titles and previously confirmed projects are still on track:
- Marathon (Bungie) has already launched on PS5, PC, and Xbox
- Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is still releasing on multiple platforms in August 2026
- Death Stranding 2: On the Beach still has a planned 2026 PC release
- Kena: Scars of Kosmora is still heading to PC as a third-party partner title
Sony’s internal rule of thumb appears straightforward. First-party story-driven games stay on PlayStation. Multiplayer titles and games built by third-party partners can still travel across platforms.
A Pricier PS5 and a Locked Door for PC Players
Timing matters here, and Sony’s timing on this decision is genuinely difficult to defend.
The cheapest PS5 Digital Edition now costs $599.99, a full $200 more than its 2020 launch price. The disc edition is $649. The PS5 Pro has climbed to $900. The PS5 Digital Edition has gone up in price by 50% since launch, a move unheard of at this stage of any prior console generation.
The hardware sales numbers are already showing the strain from those price hikes. Sony sold just 1.5 million PS5 consoles in the quarter ending March 31, 2026. That is down from 2.8 million units sold in the same quarter a year earlier.
A year-on-year decline of more than 46% is not a minor dip.
Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida publicly raised a pointed concern about the strategy reversal. He noted that PC revenue from delayed ports helped studios recoup the enormous cost of developing AAA titles and fund the next project. Without that revenue stream, the financial math for PlayStation’s big-budget output becomes harder to sustain.
Sony is also making this decision at a moment when Xbox is moving in the complete opposite direction. Microsoft is releasing Fable and Forza Horizon 6 on PS5, Xbox, and PC simultaneously. The two biggest console makers are now running completely opposing platform strategies in real time.
Sony’s bet is that exclusivity, much like Nintendo’s famously closed approach with Mario and Zelda, will force hardware purchases and drive console sales. With GTA 6 arriving later in 2026, the company expects a significant hardware boost and is counting on exclusive releases to be the reason people buy into its ecosystem. Sony has also confirmed that PS6 development is ongoing, meaning this exclusivity stance is built for the long term, not just a short-term course correction.
Sony’s six-year experiment of opening PlayStation’s best stories to PC players is over. Those who found God of War or The Last of Us through Steam are now looking at a locked gate with no key in sight. With a console that costs more than it ever has and no safety net of a delayed PC release to fall back on, Sony is asking players to make a hard choice: spend more to get in, or simply go without. That is a bold ask in a gaming market that has never been more expensive, and it deserves a far more honest public conversation than a quiet internal town hall.
What do you think about Sony pulling its single-player games back to PS5 exclusively? Drop your opinion in the comments below.






