Why Do PC Gamers Have to Wait for New Games?

PC gamers often find themselves at the back of the queue as new games arrive on consoles first. It’s frustrating to feel locked out of a game you’re eager to purchase and play, having to wait another two years for the PC release. So why does this keep happening?

Exclusive Deals

Games that are exclusive to a platform have traditionally been one of the main reasons to get one console over the other. For example, Nintendo has the Mario and The Legend of Zelda franchises, Xbox has Fable, Halo, and the Forza racing games, and PlayStation has Gran Turismo, Bloodborne, and God of War games. These games have strong, loyal fanbases and are often regarded as some of the best games in the industry.

These platform exclusives are crucial in driving console sales. I know several people who purchased certain consoles just to play these exclusives. That’s why console manufacturers sign exclusive deals with publishers to ensure their games are only released on their console, either forever or for a certain period, while the hype surrounding the game is high.

For example, God of War was released in 2018 on PlayStation 4, with a PC release following in 2022. This strategy potentially helped boost PlayStation 5 sales when the 2022 sequel, God of War Ragnarok, launched, although it was eventually released on PC in 2024.

Interestingly, the PC release led to a 39% increase in Ragnarok‘s player count, suggesting that the opposite effect can also occur. While Sony has maintained its approach to exclusive games, Microsoft shifted its strategy regarding exclusive games and now supports Windows PC on day one for Xbox exclusives.

Porting Games to PC Is Complex

Exclusive deals are only part of the equation. Some publishers simply choose not to publish games on PC, either entirely or for a certain period, because it’s often cheaper and easier to make and optimize games specifically for consoles. Consoles are a uniform platform. All PlayStation 5s in the world essentially use the same hardware, whereas gaming PCs can have a wide combination of different parts.

While modern consoles use hardware built by AMD that’s more similar to PC hardware than ever before, console games still require significant adjustments in code before they can be ported to PC. This is followed by months of testing across a wide range of different CPU, GPU, RAM, motherboard, and storage combinations.

The game also has to be tweaked to play better with keyboard and mouse, support custom key binds, and offer a wide range of graphical options, ultrawide monitor support, and more. In some cases, publishers add Denuvo before porting to protect the game from piracy, which further complicates development.

Extensive testing attempts to ensure that games run flawlessly once released, but even then, it typically requires several additional patches post-launch before the game reaches its optimal shape.

If this step is skipped and the game launches on both console and PC simultaneously, we typically see more egregious performance issues on the PC side. Unfortunately, this happens quite often. In just the past couple of years, we saw this happen with Dragon’s Dogma II, Hogwarts Legacy, Forspoken, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

The Markets Are Completely Different

It’s no secret that the PC and console gaming markets are completely different. Consoles have a significantly higher number of casual gamers who prefer large, triple-A games with stunning graphics, exceptional story-telling, and seamless gameplay.

These gamers often don’t mind paying full price for a game at release or waiting for a small discount. Backward compatibility is improving on consoles, but generational leaps still exist. This means you can only play PS5 games on a PS5 console. You may even need a PlayStation Plus subscription to play older games.

While PC gamers also love their triple-A games, and sales are continuing to grow, it’s still a smaller market. This is because PC gamers have a near-endless selection of games to choose from.

If a new triple-A game is currently too expensive, you can just play some older, free, or indie games instead. You know that the triple-A game everyone is playing right now will be put on sale eventually, so you don’t mind waiting a while.

Your complete Steam library stays with you, and you can be fairly confident that your old games will run on any new PC you eventually upgrade to. Plus, you can mod older games to get even more hours of fun out of them.

Moreover, many PC gamers prefer online games, which are typically free and generate revenue through microtransactions instead of game sales. This segment of the market is dominated by a handful of competitive esports games like League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Valorant, and Fortnite.

Some dedicated gamers spend hundreds or even thousands of hours in these games, leaving little time (and money) for triple-A games.

Although some of these competitive games are available on consoles as well, PC is still the superior platform because of native mouse and keyboard support and high refresh rates beyond what consoles support, among other reasons.

The Wait Is Sometimes Worth It

If having to wait longer for a PC release is what it takes to ensure the game is perfect—or at least in a playable state—then perhaps it’s worth the wait. As a PC gamer myself, I don’t mind waiting an extra year if it means the game will be polished, run well on my PC, and won’t suffer from game-breaking bugs.

This has long been the case with Rockstar’s titles, such as Red Dead Redemption (which took 14 years) and its sequel, not to mention GTA V and its many prequels. Sony’s exclusives like Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, God of War and Ragnarök, Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted, and Marvel’s Spider-Man were also notably delayed. Successful game releases build trust between publishers and gamers, which is great for everyone.

While pre-ordering games still generally isn’t a good idea, if you want to do it, only pre-order PC ports from publishers with a proven track record. I can say with reasonable confidence that GTA VI will be awesome on PC, even though it’ll likely take an extra year after the console version launches.