Oh dear, Ghost of Tsushima will be releasing in almost 180 fewer countries on Steam thanks to its PSN requirement
I'm sure this will go down well.
The Helldivers 2 PSN fiasco might be over now, but it seems that Ghost of Tsushima won't be releasing in nearly 180 countries on Steam due to its PSN requirement.
For a long while now, PlayStation has been finding quite a lot of success by releasing its first-party titles on Steam, even if the ports have needed some fixes along the way. Recently, though, it made a bit of a large blunder by forcing Helldivers 2 PC players to connect a PSN account to their game, something which did not go down well to put it lightly. The game was then removed from sale in over 170 countries, though the decision was walked back because of how poorly it was received. The backlash was so bad that even Sucker Punch had to clarify whether PC players would need to link a PSN account for Ghost of Tsushima's upcoming PC release (the answer is yes, but only for the game's online mode Legends).
Well, that does still seem to be the case, except ahead of its release next week, the game has been pulled from sale in the exact same countries Helldivers 2 was. Players noticed the change on Steam's backend through SteamDB, which appears to list the exact same countries as Helldivers 2 was removed from, all territories where you can't actually make a PSN account (not including Japan, though why it's included I'm not entirely sure). Some players have even reported that they've automatically received a refund from Steam due to its removal, though your mileage may vary there.
Clearly when Sony said that it's "still learning what is best for PC players" with its announcement that Helldivers 2 won't require a PSN account, this hasn't been put into practice with its other games just yet. Let's hope it soon realises that most people just want to play its games on PC without any extra faff.