Epic offered Sony $200 million to compete with Steam on PC

This was revealed in a confidential document unveiled as part of the ongoing Epic vs. Apple trial.

What you need to know

• A confidential document has come out of the Epic vs. Apple court case revealing that Epic offered Sony millions to bring its PlayStation games to the Epic Games Store.
• Epic wanted at least four PlayStation exclusives to the tune of $200 million.
• This follows emails that revealed Epic had once offered to make a game for PS5 VR in exchange for cross-play support in Fortnite.

Epic isn’t afraid to spend millions to take on the competition. PC Gamer reports (via The Verge) that a 222-page confidential document filed as part of the Epic vs. Apple trial revealed that the company had apparently offered Sony $200 million to bring PlayStation exclusives to the Epic Games Store. Since the document came out, The Verge has confirmed its authenticity.

This appears to be a larger effort by Epic to compete with Steam, Valve’s online storefront juggernaut. It’s unclear what came of these deals as PlayStation exclusives like Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone have hit PC on the Epic Games Store and Steam at the same time.

The document also revealed that Epic had conversations with Microsoft to bring its first-party games to the Epic Games Store as well, but Game Pass and Microsoft’s relationship with Valve were hurdles.

Epic had previously revealed that it loses money courting exclusives for the Epic Games Store, with total losses exceeding $300 million.

“EGS is not yet profitable at its current scale and stage of development because it has front-loaded its marketing and user acquisition costs to gain market share,” said CEO Tim Sweeney in a court filing.

This all follows emails uncovered during the trial that revealed Epic had offered to make an exclusive game on PS5 VR in exchange for cross-play support in Fortnite.