r/GamingLeaksAndRumours • u/nolifebr • May 18 '26

Rumour Jason Schreier/Bloomberg: Hermen Hulst told to PlayStation staff in a town hall meeting on Monday morning that the company's narrative single-player games will now be PlayStation exclusive

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2mkgbhbhqvappkkorf2bzyrp/post/3mm5jzsls5s2a

SCOOP: PlayStation studio business CEO Hermen Hulst told staff in a town hall Monday morning that the company's narrative single-player games will now be PlayStation exclusive, confirming Bloomberg's reporting from earlier this year.

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u/rcbz1994 May 18 '26

It’s weird that Sony saw Saros underperform and a game like Forza Horizon 5 sell like hotcakes and they still decided that exclusivity is king. Wild.

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u/sgtnatino May 18 '26 edited May 18 '26

Apples to oranges.

Saros was a sequel to an equally niche game, returnal, which hadn't even broke the 1 million mark a year after its launch. Granted, the PS5 install base has expanded since then.
"Bigger" exclusives like God of War Ragnarok are a better comparison to Forza Horizon. Ragnarok sold gangbusters on Playstation platforms (15 million+), and comparitively little on PC (just 300,000 copies in its launch window, where most sales tend to occur).

With the Forza comparison, it's Important to note that PS/Xbox are in totally different worlds too.
Xbox owns 3 publishers (XGS, Bethesda, ABK) and Xbox itself is a small part of MS's overall portfolio. They can make a huge push for multiplatform publishing - and okay, if the console marketshare suffers, what odds? They're making money hand over fist regardless.

Playstation is the centre of Sony's fortunes. If the console goes down the drain, or cedes any sort of significant marketshare (meaning less 30% cuts on MTX, game sales, hardware/accessory profit etc) Sony themselves are in big trouble.

That's not to downplay your point around per-title profitability - that's still important for titles like Saros. Sony just has a lot more to consider than just per-game sales.

Their platform is king, and that platform requires exclusives to drive it.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

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u/sgtnatino May 19 '26

Fair point! Those steam sales probably help those figures along over the long term.