Lin Tao, Chief Financial Officer for Sony Interactive Entertainment, touched base on the company’s live service plans during a Q&A following its latest financial results, admitting things haven’t gone as smoothly Sony had hoped for.
The executive addressed the “somewhat negatives news” that the console maker’s live service efforts have received to date, particularly in wake of Concord’s flop and the delay for Bungie’s Marathon.
In terms of the transformation [toward live-service games], it’s not entirely going smoothly, but from a longer-term perspective, if you look at the changes over five years, you see that there has definitely been change. Five years ago, live-service games were almost non-existent for PlayStation Studios… We [now] have Helldivers 2, MLB, [Gran Turismo 7] and Bungie’s Destiny 2. So we have these four live services contributing to sales and profit in a stable manner.
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She added that “we recognise that there are still issues – many issues – so we should learn lessons from mistakes and make sure that we introduce live service content, where there’s less waste and it’s more smooth. As previously reported, Tao revealed that Bungie is in the process of moving towards becoming part of PlayStation Studios, as following its acquisition in 2022, it remained independent in terms of development and publishing.
Sony’s major live service push was the brainchild of ex-PlayStation head honcho Jim Ryan, with the company originally hoping to have 12 games out by end of the fiscal year that wraps up March 2026. The format holder later reduced this by half after delaying a number of projects. Fast-forward to today, and we have The Last of Us Online shelved, Concord pulled offline indefinitely after failing to attract an audience, and live service products from both Bluepoint Games and Sony Bend Studio scrapped.
Earlier this year, former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden admitted that he wasn’t really taken with Sony’s then-live service push, and it was claimed that a number of PlayStation Studios teams were left feeling ‘uncomfortable‘ by Ryan’s pivot to live service products.
[Source – ThisWeekInVideoGames via Eurogamer]