PUBG Devs Looks To Launch Wildly Popular Shooter On Every Major Platform
Bluehole struck gold with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, the massively popular survival shooter that recently made gaming history by notching more than 3 million concurrent players on Steam. The game has been such a raging success that the developers were spun off into their own company, PUBG Corp, led by CEO Chang-han Kim. While it be tempting to just ride out PUBG's success by focusing on its current course, Kim has bigger plans—he wants to see PUBG launched on every platform.
That most notably includes the PlayStation 4, where PUBG has not yet manifested. It could also include the Nintendo Switch, though one thing at a time. In a recent interview with Inven Global, Kim specifically pointed to the popularity of Sony's console, especially in China where console gaming is much bigger than it is in the United States.
"I had a chat with Japanese reporters, and they said that it’s such an incredible feat considering the title is PC based. However, as you know, the console market in Japan is 10 times bigger, and most of them are PlayStation gamers. I’m not certain if it’s because PUBG is being released exclusively on Xbox One, but I was told that the PC and Xbox One markets in Japan are growing significantly. They are also running out of Xbox One Xs, I heard," Kim said.
PUBG started off as a PC title on Steam's Early Access program. It recently launched out of Early Access, and has also been ported to the Xbox One. Building a version for the PS4 seems the next logical step as Kim and company look to capitalize on the game's popularity. At the same time, Microsoft has an exclusivity agreement in place that will keep PUBG away from the PS4 for a bit, though it's not clear for how long.
"As it’s going to be an exclusive title on Xbox One for some time, we’d like to focus on completing the Xbox One PUBG for now. If we have the opportunity, the final goal would be to launch the title on every platform," Kim said.
One of the challenges with porting PUBG over to PS4 is cleaning up the gaming experience. For all of PUBG's success, there have been numerous bugs, including ones that affect performance. PUBG Corp has been working hard to smooth things out, but as Kim admits, Sony is "very strict" on its quality requirements.
So, PS4 gamers will have to wait. In the meantime, PUBG continues its record-setting ascent.