Sony president Hiroki Totoki has said the company is reviewing PlayStation’s live service game push amid development trouble that has already seen Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game hit with setbacks.
Totoki said in a financial call Sony is reviewing the 12 live service PlayStation games it has in the works, and committed to launching only six of them by the end of financial year 2025, meaning by the end of March 2026. Totoki said Sony is still working on when the other six live service games will come out, adding: “It’s not that we stick to certain titles, but for the gamers quality should be the most important.”
Sony announced plans in February 2022 to launch more than 10 live service games by March 2026, later saying the push would bring games of different genres to different audiences. It spent big on studio buyouts as part of the drive, bringing in Destiny developer Bungie, Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios, and Firewalk Studios. Sony worked with Bungie, which has live service expertise with the Destiny series, to assess its portfolio, and reportedly scaled some live service projects back as a result.
One of those projects is The Last of Us multiplayer game, which is still MIA. Its game director said he was still working on the game earlier in November, however, sparking fresh hope it may eventually come out.
What else do we know about PlayStation’s live service push? Bungie is working on Marathon, a PvP-focused sci-fi extraction shooter; Haven Studios is working on Fairgame$, a competitive heist game about robbing the ultra-rich; and Firewalk Studios is working on Concord, another sci-fi PvP multiplayer game. There’s also a Horizon multiplayer game from Guerrilla and a co-op action game from PlayStation’s London Studio.
PlayStation Studios boss Herman Hulst admitted in May Sony faces fierce competition between live service games and the time investment they take from players. “There is a risk that we talk about ‘live service’ in generic terms, as if it is a single genre or even a single business model,” he said.
“PlayStation Studios are making a variety of games that could be referred to as ‘live services’, targeting different genres, different release schedules, and at different scales. We are also creating games for different audiences, and I take confidence from our track record in creating worlds and stories that PlayStation fans love. The priority for each studio is to deliver their own project, to make the best game that they can.”
PlayStation’s live service trouble comes amid something of a shakeup within Sony Interactive Entertainment. Bungie has suffered a devastating round of layoffs, blamed on declining Destiny engagement, and Dreams and LittleBigPlanet developer Media Molecule has also suffered layoffs. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan is also set to retire next spring.
Still, Insomniac’s recently released single-player adventure Spider-Man 2 is seen as a big success, and PlayStation 5 is dominating its console rival Xbox Series X and S in terms of sales.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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