It’s been made clear for some time that Sony and PlayStation are putting more focus into creating live service titles, and that endeavour has been given even more focus, as a report from Nikkei Asia points out the company will spend about $2.13 billion on research and development for live service games and technology related to “extended reality.”
This now puts Sony’s spending for developing games above how much it spends on its other electronics and semiconductors, another sign of just how much gaming has grown, particularly in recent years.
That Sony is also spending this money to create better technology for “extended reality” experiences could potentially speak to more efforts in VR, though whether or not we’d see the fruit on that labour in time to get the PSVR2 some high-quality first-party titles remains to be seen.
Beyond that though it’s live service games that are the focus, as the industry has shifted over the years to where popular live service titles are the bread and butter money-making games that every publisher wants to have in its portfolio.
Source – [Nikkei Asia]