Hideaki Nishino, CEO and President of Sony Interactive Entertainment, has revealed that the company is still looking to push forward with its live service plans despite a string of disappointments, believing they “attract users on a global level.”
Speaking during an interview with Famitsu, Nishino-san stated that the hardware manufacturer “want[s] to continue its revitalise the market through both first-party and third-party content. With live service games, it’s important to continuously provide something,” he said.
The genre itself is relatively new, and I think many people are trying various things, so we also want to continue to take on challenges within that context. We are not only focusing on promoting new releases, but also considering what we can do with older titles in the medium to long term. Also, this year we are planning to release our own live service title, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and we hope everyone will enjoy it.
Sony hasn’t had the best of luck with live service games to put it mildly, with Concord proving to be a massive failure following its release in August 2024. The game was shut down only a few weeks after its release, and Sony later confirmed it had been pulled offline permanently and its developer shuttered.
Other casualties on the multiplayer front include Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us online title, which was in development for years as a standalone title separate from The Last of Us: Part II and was scrapped in December 2023. More recently, the Sony-owned Bungie has run into troubles recently with its latest title, Marathon, which while receiving strong reviews has failed to attract a large audience while development on Destiny 2 has now stopped.
Earlier this month it was reported that Bungie was now facing a large number of layoffs, with up to 50% off staff in danger of losing their jobs over the summer. Soon after, the studio confirmed that it was indeed laying off workers.