Sony admits transition to live-service games has not gone smoothly

Under former CEO, Jim Ryan, PlayStation embarked on a mission to break into the live-service genre, spinning up over a dozen projects across its studios. Eventually, Sony spent billions to acquire Bungie to aid in this effort, but it only resulted in most of these projects being cancelled. Now, Sony's CFO has admitted that the shift towards live-service games has not gone ‘entirely smoothly'. 

As reported by VGC, following Sony's recent earnings call, CFO, Lin Tao, addressed the live service game situation in a Q&A session. Tao acknowledged that Concord's cancellation and the recent delay of Marathon have been negative moments. Tao added “in terms of the transformation, it’s not entirely going smoothly”.

While the transition into live-service games hasn't entirely gone to plan, Tao was also quick to acknowledge that Sony does have a number of ‘wins' in this category, thanks to the likes of Helldivers 2, MLB The Show, Gran Turismo 7 and Destiny 2.

Tao concluded by saying: “Of course, we recognise that there are still many issues, so we should learn the lessons from mistakes and make sure that we introduce live service content where there’s less waste and it’s more smooth.”

Sony's next major moves in this space include bringing Helldivers 2 to Xbox, as well as launching Marathon and Fairgames. Rumour has it that Bluepoint is working on a live service game based on the God of War IP.

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KitGuru Says: This is all very much a case of stating the obvious, but it seems like things will turn around now that Sony is being choosier with these projects. 

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