The largest console makers can no longer ignore hardware. Xbox put its entire business on the brink of collapse chasing software sales at the detriment of the Series X. Now Sony hopes it can avoid the same fate, just as the entire console market is about to face a new contender from Valve and its small, box-like Steam Machine.
This week, Sony’s PlayStation brand launched a new controller. Actually, it’s not new at all. It’s the same PlayStation 5 DualSense gamepad we’re all familiar with. This time, however, the controller is “PC Ready.” The irony sat heavy, considering Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on Wednesday that Sony was ending all plans to launch its biggest titles on PC. That includes last year’s samurai simulator Ghost of Yotei and the upcoming action game Saros. Some titles, like Death Stranding 2, will still hit the PC later this year.
PC Gaming. Elevated. 🎮
The DualSense Wireless Controller is PC Ready—easy setup, epic immersion.
🎧 Haptics – Feel every drop and blast.
🎯 Triggers – Real tension at your fingertips.Check your local retailers today.https://t.co/yQJjifJyDr pic.twitter.com/5UR5Pfnlpp
— PlayStation Asia (@PlayStationAsia) March 5, 2026
Schreier based his report on several anonymous sources familiar with Sony’s plans. If true, it would be a complete 180 of Sony’s recent modus operandi. For the last several years, Sony waited a few months after its games launched on console to stick them on Steam and other PC game launchers. Some of these games didn’t sell all that well on other platforms. While fan-favorite multiplayer shooter Helldivers 2 peaked at more than 450,000 players on Steam two years ago, other titles like God of War Ragnarök and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 only managed peak players of 35,615 and 28,189, respectively, according to data from SteamDB.
Sony realized it needs to compete with Steam
Valve demands a 30% cut on all game sales from its Steam platform. That’s already a hard pill to swallow for any publisher, but it’s even worse for Sony. Valve is soon set to compete in the console market with its Steam Machine. That gaming system is a small console/PC hybrid promising to let players take their entire Steam library to their TV with minimal hassle. We still don’t know when it will launch or how much it will cost. Still, with more games on PC, Sony would be fueling Valve’s potential success. Microsoft is likely planning a similar pseudo-PC with its next-gen Xbox. The console may be capable of playing both Xbox titles and anything you normally can on PC.
And it’s not just competing consoles that are likely sticking in Sony’s craw. Sensor Tower’s State of Gaming 2026 report shows that while mobile gaming growth has practically stagnated on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, Steam’s revenue has rapidly accelerated from 2024 into 2025, growing 13% year-over-year. Mobile is still by far the biggest market for games, but Valve is still winning compared to Xbox and PlayStation. Sensor Tower data shows Steam had 857 million downloads in 2025, while PlayStation claimed 626 million. Xbox was straggling behind with 546 million.
A bleak report about the games industry made the rounds a couple of weeks ago. Then, last week, @ballmatthew added this chart to it
What it shows: Game industry revenue growth in 2025, excluding China, Roblox, hardware and console services was near 0https://t.co/GAwEI9RyLX pic.twitter.com/9IGDDLFsl0
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) March 4, 2026
Valve may be one of the few forces in the video game industry doing better than in previous years. Analyst Matthew Ball’s upsetting games industry report for 2026 showed that revenue growth outside of China and Roblox has stagnated. Games are taking longer to make. Development costs have ballooned exponentially in recent years. Major publishers can’t sell enough games to recoup losses.
The games industry can’t rely on software alone
Nintendo has been the most consistent of all publishers when it comes to game exclusivity. It has refused to launch any of its first-party titles on any other platform. Even then, Bloomberg reported on Thursday that while the Switch 2 hit 17.37 million units sold, the number of game purchases per console was an average of 2.18. Nintendo’s handheld is still selling like hotcakes, but players may not be buying nearly as many games for these new handhelds.
Sony may be calculating that it needs to emphasize hardware to make up for software sales. It can’t sell hardware unless there are games exclusive to the system. Xbox learned this lesson the hard way. It completely deemphasized exclusive games, even putting franchises like Halo and Gears of War on the PlayStation 5. It promoted Game Pass subscriptions so hard that console sales flagged quarter after quarter until it started eating into Microsoft’s larger hardware business.
Now, Xbox has entirely new leadership in CEO Asha Sharma. She’s promising to rethink the game exclusivity quandary. Meanwhile, Sony may have multiple hardware launches slated for 2026, including a new PlayStation Portal “Pro” remote player and game-streaming device. It may have a new monitor and fight stick on its slate as well. Sony is also updating the PlayStation 5 Pro with new upscaling technology. The PS5 Pro may become the one console capable of supporting ray tracing at 60 fps, at least based on what Sony execs promise. Players may have the choice to buy their games on Steam or buy them on PlayStation. But not both.
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