Shuhei Yoshida, the former President of SIE Worldwide Studios at Sony Interactive Entertainment from 2008 to 2019, recently expressed his reservations about Sony's push into live service video games. In an interview with Kinda Funny Games, Yoshida revealed that Sony was aware of the risks associated with investing in live service games. His comments come at a challenging time for PlayStation, highlighted by the mixed results of its live service endeavors.
While Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 achieved remarkable success, selling 12 million copies in just 12 weeks and becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever, other ventures like Sony's Concord faced significant setbacks. Concord, which was anticipated to be a major title, turned into one of the biggest flops in PlayStation history. The game lasted only a few weeks before being taken offline due to extremely low player engagement. Eventually, Sony decided to cancel the game and shut down its developer, Firewalk Studios. The initial development cost for Concord was reported to be around $200 million by Kotaku, a figure that did not cover the entire development or the acquisition of the IP rights and the studio itself.
The failure of Concord was compounded by the cancellation of other live service projects, including Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer game and two unannounced titles—one from Bluepoint working on a God of War project, and another from Bend Studio, known for Days Gone. These cancellations underscore the challenges Sony faces in this competitive genre.
Yoshida, who left Sony after 31 years of service, reflected on the company's strategy in the interview. He mentioned that if he were in the position of current Sony Interactive Entertainment Studio Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst, he might have resisted the shift toward live service games. Yoshida emphasized the importance of balancing the development of successful single-player titles like God of War with the risky investment in live services. He noted that under Hulst's leadership, Sony provided additional resources to explore live service games without halting the production of single-player games.
Despite the risks, Yoshida acknowledged the unexpected success of Helldivers 2, illustrating the unpredictable nature of the gaming industry. He expressed hope that Sony's strategy would eventually pay off, although he admitted he would have pushed back against the live service direction if he had remained in his position.
In a recent financial call, Sony president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki discussed the lessons learned from both the success of Helldivers 2 and the failure of Concord. Totoki highlighted the need for earlier development gates, such as user testing and internal evaluations, to identify and address issues sooner. He also pointed out Sony’s "siloed organization" and the unfortunate timing of Concord's release, which coincided with the launch of Black Myth: Wukong, leading to potential cannibalization of sales.
Totoki emphasized the importance of smoother collaboration across Sony's organizational boundaries and selecting optimal release windows to avoid such conflicts in the future. Similarly, Sony senior vice president for finance and IR Sadahiko Hayakawa compared the launches of Helldivers 2 and Concord, stating that the insights gained from these experiences would be shared across Sony's studios to enhance development and management processes.
Hayakawa also outlined Sony's strategy moving forward, which involves balancing a portfolio that includes both single-player games, leveraging proven IPs with higher predictability of success, and live service games that, while riskier, offer significant potential upside. Looking ahead, several PlayStation live service games are still in development, including Bungie’s Marathon, Guerrilla’s Horizon Online, and Haven Studio’s Fairgame$.
