It's kind of strange.Xbox makes some sense to merge with Windows. Microsoft makes both and Xbox One has had its fair share of struggles this gen. Their new approach probably sits better with investors and is forward thinking for when both consoles and PCs become streaming boxes.
On the one hand it seems like MS, Sony seem like they're heading towards getting rid of consoles. Consoles seem less important if you can play everything on PC.
On the other hand, a lot of mainstream games can already be played on PC. CoD, Assassin's Creed, GTA, and all the other big multiplats are already on PC. Yet plenty of people buy consoles to play those kinds of games.
It seems possible for consoles to stay relevant, not for the games, but for the convenience factor.Horizon will be followed by others down the road - you don't need to Dream too hard to guess. But Xbox is already well-established launching games on PC at the same time, and eager to explore Switch...
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsEG) January 16, 2020
Editor at Eurogamer.
Sony however is in the opposite situation. PlayStation is one of their most important divisions and they gain essentially nothing from selling games on Windows. If people move out of the PlayStation ecosystem they lose PSN and PS+ money. It is literally just them transitioning to a 3rd party publisher with what is currently leaked.
I can really only make sense of this news if Sony is either doing this for select titles that make sense on a case by case basis (Horizon might be easy to port thanks to Death Stranding and Horizon 2 is coming soon for PS5, Dreams has greater potential on everything, MLB The Show was pushed for licensing reasons, etc.), or if they will shortly announce a major PC initiative that expands the PlayStation ecosystem to Windows. Something like PS Now can stream every single PS5 game.