Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, has revealed that the upcoming God of War 2 and Gran Turismo 7 will launch on both the PS4 and PS5. The PS5 presentation events that happened before the system launched promoted several exclusive titles, but a lot of them have since become cross-gen games.
The PS5 was meant to have several exclusives at launch, but two of the biggest titles, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Sackboy: A Big Adventure, became cross-gen games before their release. The system has received some exclusives since, like Demon's Souls and Returnal, but it seems that Sony is considering the big picture when it comes to the sales of these products. The upcoming Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is starting to feel like the only big-name exclusive that isn't cross-gen, as the game couldn't function on the PS4.
There are two more former PS5 exclusives that are now being fitted for the PS4. Hermen Hulst told the PlayStation Blog that God of War 2 and Gran Turismo 7 will be cross-gen titles, launching on both the PS4 and PS5. This news follows the announcement that God of War 2 has been delayed to 2022. The two games still lack a solid release date, but they're now both expected to launch in 2022.
The decision to make these games cross-gen makes a lot of sense from a financial perspective. Sony is expecting PS5 shortages to continue into 2022, with no end in sight for the problems caused by low stock and scalpers. Meanwhile, there are already a lot of PS4 owners in the world, as Sony has sold over 115 million consoles, and there are many God of War and Gran Turismo fans among them. Sony can't make enough PS5 consoles to keep up with demand and the PS4 has a massive install base, so turning these games into cross-gen titles is a smart move.
The more worrying aspect is how well these games will run on the older systems and what it means for Sony's plans going forward. Sony originally took a bullish approach to cross-gen titles, in what was meant to act as opposition to Microsoft's backward compatibility-friendly plans for the Xbox Series X/S. It seems that this has been thrown out of the window, as the company attempts to bring its big exclusives to as many players as possible. This also means that there is less incentive to buy a PlayStation 5 for its exclusives, but the system is selling so well that Sony might not care about that as much as it used to.
Source: PlayStation Blog