Update: Sega of America’s Communications Manager got back to us and replied to our request regarding Judgement coming to the PC. This is what was said to us;
Thanks for reaching out! SEGA does not have plans to release Judgment for PC at this time.
So there you have it. While we originally thought that perhaps the Stadia version bumped the PC version out of the way. Now it seems, at least from the reply, that Sega hasn’t decided on if they’ll bring Judgment to the PC. And that isn’t very reassuring, again as Sega stated they were planning on bringing more titles to the PC.
I want to think that Judgment may eventually find its way to the PC, but for now, don’t count on it.
Original story below.
Looks like the Stadia version took priority over the PC version.
Yesterday, Sega announced that Judgment is heading to the PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Stadia. However, you have noticed that the PC version, which was rumored to be in production, was not announced. Failing to see why the PC version was omitted, I reached out to Sega but have not heard anything. During that time, someone reached out to me, not from Sega, saying that this was due to some sort of Stadia exclusive deal, which would be mindblowing, especially given the news that Google has pretty much pulled the plug on Stadia. I mean, who in the heck would approve of this over at Sega?
But is there any proof of this? That depends on what you define as proof, so bear with me. When I was over at the Judgment website, I noticed that there is a reference to Steam. If you view the page source, you can see a mention of Steam being listed.
Click the image to enlarge it.
The code states that there is supposed to be a Steam logo listed on Judgment’s page. While the image class is listed, but the referring image src is that of the Stadia logo image instead of the Steam logo. This means that the Steam version was originally going to be released, but somehow the Stadia version ended up with an exclusive deal. What gives?
Now we don’t know for sure how that happened, and Sega hasn’t replied to us quite yet, though the evidence does speak for its self. That said, with Stadia on the ropes, I wonder how long this exclusivity window is for. Needless to tell you, I’m not a fan of this; either the PC version being dropped in favor of the Stadia version or how this (we assume) went about.
What’s also puzzling is that Sega, mere months ago, stated they were 100% onboard with bringing their games to the PC. The company had already started to port over the Yakuza titles, Bayonetta and Vanquish. Following that, they ported over Atlus’s Persona 4 Golden, which until then was exclusive to the now-dead PlayStation Vita. Seeing how well that game was received, Sega supposedly decided to throw more support to bringing existing and newer titles to the PC.
Even Sega Sammy’s President and COO Haruki Satomi chimed in on this.
“We remastered “Persona 4 the Golden”, a title previously sold on the PlayStation Vita, and released it for sale on Steam this fiscal year. Because of the game’s critical acclaim and its low selling price, sales were much stronger than expected. We will continue to actively promote porting previously released titles to Steam and new platforms. We are also negotiating with platform holders for new games in the future, and we’re considering ways to sell under favorable conditions for each title. Among them are measures such as preparing PC versions of the titles from the beginning, with multi-platform releases in mind.”
So it’s not like Sega isn’t on board with the PC, but this recent move with Judgment is a head scratch, no doubt about that.
Hopefully, Sega does get back to us regarding this, but from what we’re seeing, it does appear there was some sort of deal made. Of course, this is all speculation based on the info found, but it could be completely wrong. It could simply be a webmaster who dropped the ball. Again, we’ll update once (and if) Sega gets back to us.
