Because they make lots of money on software sales? Hardware sales are chump change comparatively to Software and subscription fees. That's the big one though, subscription fee's. That's what they really want.
It's a growth opportunity regardless and will only continue to be more important as time goes on as PC gaming is growing incredibly fast. They shouldn't ignore it forever.
1) Hardware sales are not chump change. Even with the growth of their Network segment, the Hardware segment as of last year was still the
largest portion of their G&NS unit, aka their most viable unit outside of Financial Services.
2) With that said, Network (PSN etc)
is the largest growing part of their G&NS unit, accounting for $4.69 billion last year. How are they going to recoup that money by porting to PC?
3) Porting to PC also means in at least a small way, supporting their competitor's platform. This is one of the biggest drawbacks for Sony and Nintendo and why they would want to vehemently avoid PC since they don't own their own ecosystem. Microsoft has a vested interest in cultivating the Windows ecosystem. Sony does not. Their ecosystem is the PS ecosystem.
4) People are underselling PC porting procedures. Sure, it's easier than ever before, but that doesn't mean it's a
trivial process.
5) On PS4, they also have an important hold on sales themselves. In nearly every way too, buying movies, games, TV shows, avatars, PS Plus subs, DLC, PlayStation Now, licensing fees, etc. Start porting to PC and make your own consoles irrelevant? You lose that. For Microsoft, that doesn't matter, for Sony, it does.
6) None of this addresses the main contention which is that "exclusives are bad for the consumers," which is something that I've never really bought. Timed exclusives for DLC and stupid shit like that are probably a fairly clear-cut case of "bad for consumers." A game that otherwise wouldn't exist without being funded by a platform holder is not so clear cut a case. Was the way Bayonetta 2 was released bad for consumers? I sure as hell don't think so.
7) All of this also fails to address the larger picture. A game being gated by platform exclusivity may be "bad for consumers" in that specific case, but in the long-run, may not be. Exclusivity can mean more money for the developer, which can in turn mean more money to spend on their future projects, which in turn is good for the consumer.
I'm not even sure why there's a "exclusives suck" discussion going on right now. It's not like a major third party publisher signed an exclusivity deal with Sony for the game. Sony went out and made a deal with Marvel to license the Spider-man property and then hired Insomniac to develop it. It's extremely similar to the whole MLB situation, where they obtained an MLB license and then published and developed an exclusive MLB title, only we don't see a whole host of these posts in those threads (as far as I know).
Exactly.
They got the rights, presumably from the Civil War talks, and then looked for someone to make it. I'm not sure how that's "bad" for anyone.
