Shift Up has officially committed to a 2025 release for their PlayStation 5 exclusive Stellar Blade.
As reported by Gematsu, they made this statement in their latest financial meeting Q&A:
“We’re aiming for a 2025 release. Given recent trends like Steam’s growing presence in the AAA games market and the global success of Black Myth: Wukong, we are expecting the PC version to perform even better than the console version.”
In a previous financial Q&A, Shift Up revealed that Stellar Blade sold over one million units last June, three months after it launched as a PlayStation 5 exclusive. That was good enough for Shift Up to tout it as a success in their IPO, even as it was glaringly obvious that their reputation was really already built on their mobile games, like Destiny Child and Goddess of Victory NIKKE.
The PlayStation 5 exclusivity deal became gristle for console wars, as fans debated whether it would benefit Shift Up or not. Shift Up’s developers themselves repeatedly talked about how working with Sony was a dream for them, but other developers have different perspectives.
For example, their fellow Korean game developer Pearl Abyss rejected a similar offer to publish their upcoming open world title Crimson Desert. Unlike Shift Up, Pearl Abyss was already an established publisher in the West, so they didn’t need a partner like Sony.
Pearl Abyss even brought up the example of Shift Up and Stellar Blade to their own investors. As they pointed out, Shift Up may have felt that they had to partner with Sony since they didn’t have their own ability to publish in the West themselves.
So, when some gamers point out that Stellar Blade selling a million units on a platform with over 65 million owners is not great, they do have a point. We understand that it was not at the budget of a Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, so expectations for it are lower. But Shift Up clearly knows that they could have made more money if they were able to launch the game as a multiplatform title from the onset.
Since PC is also where Nexon is enjoying success with The First Descendant, it’s easy to see that Shift Up will also see success on it with Stellar Blade. The First Descendant also happens to have launched on Xbox alongside PlayStation and Steam, a clear indication that third parties do see that multiplatform is the way to go.
If Shift Up signed the same deal that Kojima Productions did for Death Stranding, they may be able to bring Stellar Blade to Xbox, and maybe even Nintendo, cloud streaming, and mobile someday. But it will probably take five or so years for that Sony contract to run out first.
