Sony has pulled Ghost of Tsushima for sale in 180 countries for PC, because they did not bring PSN to those regions.
Mere hours after our report that Ghost of Tsushima was not yet pulled from sale for PC, Sony actually moved forward with this delisting for the weekend. SteamDB tracks changes to games listed on Steam and has a record of when the game was removed for these regions.
Ghost of Tsushima is also listed on Epic Game Store. While Epic does not allow access to their information in the same way that Valve does for Steam, this writer can personally confirm that the titles is no longer available to purchase in the Philippines for both Steam and Epic Game Store. It is most likely that the same regions where the game was delisted for Steam are the same regions where it was delisted for Epic Game Store.
While some fans bemoan that Sony is losing money by not selling the game in these regions, that is only partly true. If we base it on the pure sales numbers, we do know that most game sales occur in the US, regardless of platform, as the biggest market for video games. The money that Sony would have to put in to add PSN to those regions may not make the effort worthwhile. Whether they could make it profitable or not, just delisting the game is the easy solution. It is true that there is a way around it for us to play the game; that would be to buy a PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5, make a PSN account there, and play Ghost of Tsushima on the console that way.
We also need to remember the reason that PlayStation Studios started bringing games to PC in the first place. As Sony has explained matter of factly, it isn’t actually because they believe on principle that their games should be available outside of PlayStation. It’s a business move because PlayStation 5 owners are not buying enough of their first party games, even if the games are exclusive or are some of the biggest games available on the platform.
As we also know from the latest market studies, more gamers nowadays play live service games like Fortnite on PlayStation instead of playing Sony’s own games. So the PlayStation 5 owners who don’t play Sony games are accounted for; the PlayStation 5 truly is just another system for them.
It’s a rich irony, as there are many Sony fans in the countries that don’t have PSN, such as the Philippines. I’m sure I am not the only PlayStation user who has taken for granted that we had to make US PSN accounts to be able to access PSN services. Many of us saw it as a convenient lifehack, but it’s now clear that it doesn’t really indicate that Sony cares about its PlayStation users here, or in any of those other regions that don’t have PSN.
This may also reflect on the future of PlayStation Studios’ releases on PC, or maybe not. There are still quite a few Sony games that don’t have an online component; so would they force this restriction on those games as well? We may find out soon enough, as God of War: Ragnarok would be just about ready to get its PC port.
