Sony’s billion-dollar PC boom — and why skipping more Steam ports now seems impossible

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As a PC gamer, I’ve been really interested to see Sony start bringing some of its PlayStation exclusives over to PC since 2020 – *Horizon Zero Dawn* on Steam was the first, and it felt like a big deal. Now, a new report from Alinea Analytics is digging into how well those PC releases have actually done over the last five years, and I’m eager to see the data!

As a PlayStation fan, I was really excited to see them bring some of their games to Steam, and it’s clearly paid off! I heard that PlayStation games have sold a whopping 43 million copies on Steam, bringing in $1.5 billion in revenue *before* Steam takes their share. That leaves Sony with around $1.2 billion, which is amazing! It just goes to show what a smart move it was. What’s even better is that bringing games to Steam hasn’t hurt console sales at all – it’s just added another solid revenue stream for Sony.

The full breakdown of Steam sales

Helldivers 2 is driving PlayStation’s success on Steam, having sold 12.7 million copies and generated over $400 million in revenue. Horizon Zero Dawn remains a strong performer with 4.5 million copies sold—a figure I find surprising, as I don’t consider it the best PlayStation series. God of War has sold 4.2 million copies, followed by Days Gone at 3.4 million, and Spider-Man Remastered with 2.7 million copies.

I’ve been following the sales numbers for Helldivers 2, and the data from Alinea Analytics – they’re usually pretty spot-on with these things before the official reports come out – is really interesting. Apparently, Helldivers 2 has sold over twice as many copies on Steam as it has on PlayStation 5! Now, it looks like sequels, in general, aren’t performing quite as well as their original games did, selling less than half the copies in the same amount of time on Steam. While Helldivers 2 is still bringing in serious money for Sony – we’re talking millions – there’s definitely a dip compared to how the first game performed.

As a PC gamer, I’ve been following the recent dip in PC game sales, and Alinea Analytics has a point – when games take *ages* to come to PC after consoles, it really kills the hype. If PlayStation and Steam releases were closer together, I think we’d see a much better response. Honestly, though, a big part of the problem is just *bad* PC ports. Everyone was talking about how rough Spider-Man 2 was on PC – it was arguably Sony’s worst yet! We PC players really rely on solid optimization at launch, and when that’s missing, it’s a major turn-off.

Why Sony should commit to more PC releases

Sony’s success on Steam demonstrates that releasing games on PC is a consistently good way to make money. While Helldivers 2 has been a major hit, the company has still earned an impressive $1.2 billion by simply bringing its PlayStation games to PC, proving the strategy is effective.

Releasing PlayStation games on PC closer to their console release dates could help maintain excitement. Plus, many popular PlayStation series aren’t yet available on Steam. Games like Ratchet & Clank collections, Gravity Rush, Infamous, the original Uncharted games, Bloodborne, and the Demon’s Souls remake would likely be successful on PC and generate a lot of money.

I’ve been having a great time playing PlayStation games on my Steam Deck through Steam. I’m even thinking about buying Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. If Sony releases more of its games on PC, those will also be playable on Xbox devices like the Steam Deck, and maybe even on the new Xbox console that’s rumored to be PC-based and run Steam.

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2025-11-26 00:09