Former PlayStation Boss Reveals Thought Process Behind PC Ports

The former president of PlayStation Studios recently gave his thoughts on PlayStation porting its games to PC and the recent pivot away from the platform.

Shawn Layden was the man in charge of PlayStation Studios when it decided to begin porting some of its exclusive IPs over to PC. Now, he’s reflecting on that move and on Sony’s recent decision to stop porting its games to PC.

He still believes exclusivity is important to platforms, citing the impact of Mario and Zelda games on Nintendo hardware. However, his decisions were rooted in the hopes that new players would be able to experience the different worlds available on PlayStation.

Shawn Layden Says PlayStation PC Ports Were Never About Money

During an interview on the PSI podcast, Shawn Layden stated that the decision to move into PC was never about making money. Rather, he was trying to grow brand awareness beyond traditional PlayStation platforms.

“The PC thing, in my mind anyway, 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?’ Not necessarily because they’re going to buy a PlayStation. I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t think that was going to happen,” he said. “As we take our intellectual property across other media, you need to have as many eyeballs that are aware of this character, of this story, and just concentrating on the PlayStation population, and only telling them these stories.”

The next major PlayStation exclusive is Marvel’s Wolverine from Insomniac. That is due to be released in less than 3 months on September 15. As of now, there’s no plan to port that game to PC. Insomniacs’ previous Spider-Man titles were all ported over.

How do you feel about these comments made by Shawn Layden? Sound off about this story and all others in our official Discord server.

For more PlayStation news, check out the recent development in which Sony announced it would cease production of physical game discs beginning in 2028. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.