DF Direct Weekly: Is PlayStation Network integration heading to PC?

1 year 7 months ago

DF Weekly reaches its three-quarter-century milestone this week and dominating our discussion is the evidence that Sony may well be planning its own launcher for PC users - possibly unwelcome news in an era where the PC platform is besieged by a wealth of bespoke launchers that nobody really wants to use... but are we looking at this in the wrong way? What if the references found in the Marvel's Spider-Man PC port are actually pointing the way to a closer integration with the PlayStation Network?

There's much to commend the idea of properly integrating PlayStation Studios games into the wider PSN 'ecosystem' - and we've seen this level of console/PC integration pay off handsomely on Xbox Live, meaning that PC and console users can form groups and play multiplayer titles together, Achievements/Trophies could also be synchronised, but perhaps the most enticing level of functionality would be the transfer of saves between platforms. Acknowledgement of a PlayStation account already owning the game could lead to (a hushed awe please) cross-buy purchases, or at the very least a good degree of discount. Sony has talked about its commitment to GAAS (games as a service), it has purchased Bungie, who are pledged to remaining a multi-platform games producer, so some mechanism to expand PSN beyond PlayStation alone makes sense for a lot of reasons.

With that said, if the primary objective of the exercise is more about circumventing the revenue shares demanded by Steam and the Epic Games Store (Sony's current outlets for its PC wares), we'd not be so impressed. We'd also like to see any PSN integration to be optional rather than mandatory as it is on the some Xbox first-party games, where you can buy them from Steam but you still require an Xbox Live account to play them. The bottom line is that the reveal of any new launcher brings about a collective groan from the PC audience, when there are ways and means to make them actually worthwhile and useful.

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Author
Richard Leadbetter

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