Xbox Chief Phil Spencer criticises Sony's deferral policy for PC releases

Phil Spencer criticized Sony for deferring PC launches and charging customers twice

Phil Spencer, the head of the Xbox division, criticised Sony's approach of bringing exclusive titles to PC years after launch and charging customers twice for them. Spencer said that Xbox is currently the only platform that is shipping games on console, PC and cloud simultaneously. These games are also available as part of the Xbox Game Pass, a subscription service for games that is available on both PC and console.

Sony's policy on first party titles has always been to cherry pick the most popular releases on their hardware and then bring them to the PC, years after the initial launch. In some cases, with a full box price.

Recently Herman Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios expressed interest in bringing more first party games to PC.

“We’re still early on in our planning for PC,” said Hulst, “And Horizon Zero Dawn has been very successful. I think it shows there’s an appetite from gamers outside the PlayStation ecosystem to experience the amazing portfolio of games that PlayStation fans have enjoyed for years.”

He also said that PlayStation would remain the first place to buy and play games for the foreseeable future and promised that Sony would " continue to look at the right times to launch each game".