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The head honcho for Sony’s PlayStation division, Hideaki Nishino, has proclaimed that consoles will continue to be at the heart of Sony’s gaming strategy, as “PCs are difficult to set up.” Despite the huge continuing popularity of gaming PCs, Nishino reflects a still widely-held belief that PCs require an extra level of effort, and while in many ways he’s not wrong, he’s also seemingly forgetting one of the biggest downsides of the just-announced PS5 Pro.
Much as we all love gaming on our PCs – I, for instance, have never owned a games console – there’s no denying that even if you purchase one of the best gaming PCs you can buy ready-made from a system builder, gaming is far from a plug and play experience. You have to download and set up accounts on various different game distribution apps, such as Steam and Epic Games Launcher, and battle with widely varying best settings for different games and systems – Sony, of course, doesn’t have its own PC games app.
However, while there can be a bit of a learning curve to all that, it ends up being relatively simple; it only starts to become tricky if you decide to build a gaming PC yourself. Moreover, Nishino is forgetting one crucial factor that always used to be a major advantage for consoles, but which Sony just nixed with the release of the PS5 Pro: physical media.
Yes, you used to be able to just buy a game for a console, plug it in, and play, but not anymore with the PS5 Pro. And while modern consoles have for a while allowed you to download games as well as run them from a physical disc, it was at least always an option for the existing PS5 to just drop in a disc and go (updates notwithstanding), making it easy to buy a game as a physical gift for someone.
Nishino’s comments came in response to a question by the Japanese news site, Nikkei (paywalled), which asked his thoughts on the value of consoles. In response, Nishino said, “I think that with mobile devices, there are many games that show advertisements, and PCs are difficult to set up, but with PlayStation, once you turn it on, you can experience the content you bought straight away.”
He goes on to say that “the store where you purchase software also offers an intuitive experience because the products are laid out in an easy-to-understand manner,” which may be the case in Japan but certainly isn’t always the case elsewhere in the world.
Reassuringly, though, he added that “we are trying to increase our share of the overall game market by developing content for PCs as well. There is no doubt that consoles will be at the core of our business, but by offering titles for platforms other than consoles, we will reach a wider range of customers.”
So it’s clear Sony is still very much focused on consoles first, which ultimately does make sense as it’s a much more controllable platform. While consoles remain viable options, Sony can control aspects of pricing, distribution, and accessory licensing, while ensuring users get a consistent experience. We may love the numerous ways we can tinker with our PCs, upgrading hardware, installing new software, and even modding games to our hearts’ content, but it’s not for everyone.
All of which makes it no surprise that Sony is apparently looking to again use AMD to produce the next generation PS6 CPU, as this should in theory streamline product development and software/game development, given that Sony has used AMD chips for the PS4, PS5, and PS5 Pro.
But what do you make of Nishino’s statement? Is it still fair to say that PCs are difficult to set up, or are we effectively past that now? Let us know your thoughts on the PCGamesN Facebook and X pages. After all, there’s a reason we still consider the Steam Deck OLED the best gaming handheld, precisely because it doesn’t use Windows, and instead presents itself as a streamlined, console-like experience.
