PlayStation chair Hiroki Totoki has confirmed that Sony games published to PC will continue to have the PSN requirement.
As reported by GamesRadar, Totoki defended their decision in the Q&A of their latest earnings call.
We will share the translation provided in real time:
“We have learned a lot. The way to face the issues regarding PC, for instance. The PlayStation accounts that we have offered – well actually, by offering them, for instance, sometimes that tends to invite pushback.
But for the live service games, in order to maintain order of the gaming so that anybody can enjoy the games safely, we need to create an environment conducive to that and, of course, enjoying the game freely.
Having some restrictions, may not call it rule, but to ask the users and gamers to follow the manner, those manners are very important and we have to continue to seek the best way to achieve this.”
Totoki is Sony Group’s COO and CFO, and has been involved in the PlayStation business in that capacity for years. He briefly became PlayStation’s CEO after Jim Ryan announced his retirement.
Today, the PlayStation division is run by two CEOs, Hideaki Nishino for the hardware division, and Hermen Hulst on the software and services division. Both Nishino and Hulst answer directly to Totoki, as the chair of PlayStation.
So Totoki is not making this announcement above Hulst, this is something that they dedided together. Totoki may be too busy to have seen firsthand what happened to Helldivers 2 when they suddenly announced the PSN login requirement.
Even after Sony took the requirement back, the game was delisted in Steam on the countries and regions where Sony did not enter to give consumers proper PSN accounts. As a result, a large number of Helldivers 2 players lost access to the game. Subsequently, Arrowhead has had to struggle with the smaller potential player and buyer base moving forward.
Our source, Gamesradar, argues that this requirement is not needed for single player games, but we don’t have to pretend to be so naïve. Sony can move the goalposts for their PC ports as they like. Even if they lose out on making more money, they can choose to lower budgets for their games (which they should clearly be doing anyway) and rationalize their choices in other ways.
Totoki’s statement vaguely alludes to security concerns prodding them to make that PSN login requirement. Dataminers believe the PSN login client on PC also gives them telemetry and data collection as well.
It’s ironic to tout that PSN is a security measure, given its reputation for being particularly vulnerable to hackers compared to their peers. But if you were hoping Sony would have picked up some ‘common sense’ or learned a ‘lesson’ from Helldivers 2, they are clearly telling the public that they’re standing firm.
