Sony has decided that letting PC owners stream PlayStation games is a waste of its time and will pull the plug on its PlayStation Plus Windows application on 10 December.
According to The Verge. the Japanese gaming giant claims fewer than 0.4 per cent of eligible PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers use the software, making it an obvious candidate for the corporate executioner’s axe. Customers who bought Premium subscriptions to play games without owning a PlayStation will have to find something else to do with their computers.
Sony buried the announcement at the bottom of its November PlayStation Plus Game Catalogue update, beneath descriptions of forthcoming games and just below the sign beware of the leopard. Anyone checking which titles would arrive this month might have missed the small matter of the company withdrawing an existing service. It was an interesting place to announce a product’s death.
Sony Interactive Entertainment senior director Adam Michel said the company regularly reviews its services to focus on what matters to customers. He explained that the tiny PC audience meant Sony could spend its resources improving more popular features. The company provided no figures showing how many people actually used the application or how much money it expected to save.
The Windows application let Premium subscribers stream selected games directly from Sony’s servers without a PlayStation console. It offered access to older PlayStation titles, including PS3 and PS4 games, although the application never received support for streaming the PS5 library. Sony was therefore competing for PC gamers with a catalogue that excluded some of its most desirable newer releases.
The service has been around in various forms for a decade. Sony introduced PlayStation Now streaming to Windows computers in August 2016, initially allowing users to play PS3 games over the internet. It subsequently expanded the catalogue before folding PlayStation Now into the revamped PlayStation Plus subscription service in 2022.
When Sony reorganised its subscriptions, PC streaming became part of the most expensive Premium tier. Customers could use the same subscription to access game catalogues on their consoles, while Windows users could stream compatible titles without purchasing PlayStation hardware. This gave Sony a way to collect subscription money from people who had no intention of buying one of its consoles.
The trouble was that Sony never seemed terribly enthusiastic about developing the Windows application. Its catalogue remained limited compared with the experience available on PlayStation hardware, and the company did little to promote the service. Users commenting on the closure said they had forgotten the application existed, while others admitted they had never heard of it. Sony has apparently decided that an obscure product attracts very few customers, which is an achievement worthy of a management seminar.
The shutdown will not affect cloud streaming on PS5 or PS4 consoles, and PlayStation Portal owners can continue using supported streaming features. Remote Play, which lets customers access their own consoles from another device, remains available. PC users without PlayStation hardware will lose their direct route into Sony’s cloud catalogue.
Sony has not indicated it plans to reduce Premium subscription prices after the withdrawal. Its announcement makes clear that existing memberships will continue, but says nothing about compensation for customers who subscribed primarily for Windows streaming. Sony has promised to contact affected users directly, but it has yet to explain what alternatives it intends to offer.
The decision comes as Sony appears to be reconsidering its broader relationship with PC gaming. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that the company had abandoned plans to bring several major single-player PlayStation exclusives to Windows. Games such as Ghost of Yōtei and Saros were expected to remain console exclusives, although multiplayer and live-service projects could still receive PC releases.
Sony spent several years opening its catalogue to Windows customers, beginning with Horizon Zero Dawn in 2020 and subsequently releasing titles including God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man and The Last of Us. The company’s apparent shift in direction suggests management is once again concerned about protecting the commercial appeal of PlayStation hardware. Sony has not officially announced a blanket ban on future PC conversions.
This puts Sony at odds with the software king of the world, Microsoft, which has increasingly treated Xbox consoles and Windows computers as parts of the same gaming business. Redmond offers PC releases, Xbox Play Anywhere support and cloud streaming across different devices. Sony appears happier keeping customers inside its own hardware empire, where it can encourage them to buy another expensive box.
The company has not disclosed how many Premium subscribers will lose access, the period used to calculate its 0.4 per cent figure or what it costs to maintain the Windows application. Its official PlayStation Blog announcement gives 10 December as the retirement date, while the UK support website currently lists 11 December. Customers will receive email notifications about the withdrawal.
