PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was one of the biggest games of 2017, and it looks like 2018 will be just as big a year for it. The battle royale shooter took the world by storm when it released on Steam Early Access, and over the many months of it being on there it grew and evolved through the power of 30+ million people playing it. Then, the game grew, even more, when PUBG Corp made a deal with Microsoft to bring the game to Xbox One. This left many wondering…could it come to PS4 too?
The possibility is out there for many reasons, not the least of which is because the game is only a “timed exclusive” for the Xbox One, console wise that is. So, once the exclusivity agreement ends (which will likely happen a while after the full version launches), it’s entirely possible they’ll bring the game to the PS4. But, as for what’s stopping them from planning it right now, it’s a couple of things.
PUBG Corp CEO Chang Han Kim talked with Invenglobal.com and noted that there’s a key difference between the PS4 and the Xbox One/Steam…an early access program.
Early Access on Steam and Game Preview on Xbox One are like pre-release, so they don’t have a restriction on quality. However, PS is very strict about this. There were cases where a game took 6 months more to launch even when it was already completed. We are still in the stage of learning the console development environment and console gamers’ taste. We need to think about other platforms after evaluating and completing the Xbox One version first.
That last sentence is key, as the Xbox One version does need to be finished before any thoughts of a PS4 version are had. Especially since the Xbox One version has some pretty significant issues in it. Once they’re fixed, and once the game is launched? Who knows where PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will go.
