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Sony has had some success with live service, but in a week where it gutted Bungie, the team it bought for $3.7 billion with the intention of establishing a ‘Live Service Centre of Excellence’, it’s hard to say things have gone well.
Yes, Helldivers 2 has been very successful, and the likes of Gran Turismo 7 and MLB The Show have remained evergreen hits.
But Concord remains the most embarrassing failure in PlayStation history, Fairgames still isn’t out, and the initiative has claimed many unfortunate casualties, like well-loved studio Bluepoint.
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Despite all of that, boss Hideaki Nishino is not giving up.
Asked by Famitsu what the future holds for its live service plans, he said it’s what “attracts users on a global level”.
To be fair to Nishino, as much as readers of this site may not want to hear that, he’s right. The most played games on the PS5 are all live service, and the microtransactions within them have become Sony’s biggest money maker.
Love or loathe it, I personally don’t think it’s wrong to pursue this market.
The problem has always come down to execution for me, and to Nishino’s credit, he does appear to indicate that the firm has been learning.
He explained: “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.”
He noted that Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, the superhero-themed fighter from Arc System Works, is its next crack in the space – and I don’t think any of us are disappointed by the existence of that.
“We hope everyone will enjoy it,” he beamed. “We would be happy if it becomes popular.”
The great irony here is that fans have spent the last month begging Sony for Destiny 3, and its response to that this week has been to lay off almost half of the team.
I understand there are larger issues at Bungie and making a new Destiny would cost an exorbitant amount of money, but that’s probably something it should have considered when it purchased the studio.
I’m not against PlayStation continuing to explore live service, but I’d like to see it evolve its approach. Not everything needs to be an online shooter, for starters, and maybe it should focus on making a quality product first and foremost.
I accept roadmaps and content pipelines need to be taken into account, but most live service games start out with a cool idea. I hope Marvel Tokon finds success and proves to Sony there’s a way to do this differently.