So everyone thinks a remaster makes sense? Personally it sounds a bit lazy IMO. Why would the PS5 need a separate remaster for the game when they could just make a patch to boost the framerate to 60? They wouldn't even necessarily need to do anything in terms of resolution, but IIRC there are some PS4 games running in BC on PS5 with improved resolution alongside framerate.
Agreed with
@ethomaz , a BC patch for PS5 and a standalone port to PC with new display & resolution options would be the best way to do this if it's just a remaster.
If it's as beautiful as Demon's Souls, I can't see the problem.
Demon's Souls was a remake, though, built from the ground-up to recreate the original PS3 game with whole new assets, textures, animations etc. Remasters generally just take the original game and improve the framerate and resolutions, and maybe improve some of the textures. But base assets etc. are the same as the original game.
If Sony is dumb enough to make a highly anticipated game like a Bloodborne remake and put it on PC day 1 I would sell my PS5 and pirate the shit out of it. Horrible business move.
I do think Sony need to be careful about how they handle the optics of these PC ports in terms of it possibly influencing core members of the fanbase to consider migration to such a platform for their gaming. We don't even know how financially successful these PC ports have been for them so far, and I guess we'll have to wait until the 24th to get some numbers on that.
However if say a Bloodborne port to PC is tying in to a Bloodborne sequel being announced for PS5, then I don't see any issue, provided when the sequel is set to come out. I personally feel it's in Sony's best interest to just set a cadence of "Port over the older game to PC within a year or so of a new installment coming to the console", and enhance the PC port with new features and maybe some additional content, while letting console owners upgrade to those new features (and if there, content) for a small fee through a patch.
While that sets a hardline cadence it's one where you're still guaranteed the game has a few years of console exclusivity, so they fully exhaust that pipeline (B2P sales, eventual PS+ inclusion a few years later) before then bringing the game to a platform that's outside of their ecosystem (and yes just like with Microsoft even if Sony want to try claiming PC is part of the PlayStation ecosystem, it's not in the way that matters for vertical integration, and it's even worst in Sony's case because at least Microsoft owns the OS that most PC gamers use).
People waiting on a PC port would have to a wait a good while, in the meantime there's an affordable console you can buy to play the game on. Some of these artificial arguments that 'shutting out' PC gamers from Day 1 access is anti-consumer or whatever but those arguments are highly selective and only applied to Sony. Nintendo's not bothered bringing a single game to PC and yet no one bats an eye (just like how apparently PlayStation "needs" Xbox to have competition and be honest yet no one claims Nintendo "needs" PSP or another portable/hybrid from Sony in order to have competition and be fair with customers
).
It's not anti-consumer to leverage your 1P and even 3P games in a way to add value to your platform. Microsoft forfeited that by doing Day 1 on PC for all their games, and the end result is the stagnation you're seeing today with Xbox Series and almost sad measures like Phil Spencer's X-Cast interview where he seems to acknowledge Xbox the console doesn't have a core identity anymore. Well no shit it doesn't, you decided to bring all your games to PC Day 1 back in 2015!
But I digress...
FWIW I think many of Sony's live-service/GaaS titles would be exempt from this; there are obvious business and community parity reasons why some of those should be Day 1 on PC if not most of them. Factions will likely be the start. But Sony do need to address the elephant of how does that fairness play out for console owners if the game is non-F2P yet they have to pay for online, while PC gamers don't. Also ensure there are separate leaderboards for console & PC, no forced cross-play (you can opt-in or opt-out) alongside a combined leaderboard, and probably enable KB&M options for console players when it's a FPS, just for those who want that option.
Yes I know they could make good money porting non-live service/GaaS titles to PC in a 6 month-1 year timescale or even Day 1 but I think there is a serious optics issue tied to that and I don't want PlayStation to go through a similar problem Xbox has suffered in that regard, because in Xbox's case I feel it took a few years before the problem started to settle in, and a few more before it began to rot at the console side of things. We can debate about the overall quality of their 1P over the past several years being the real factor or not; personally I think that only exacerbated the eventual problem, but the decline to optics on the console side was going to happen regardless when they did Day 1 on PC for all of their games. It really ended up hurting a lot of the value proposition of the console for some of the more hardcore customers (who also happen to spend the most money).