Sony has addressed the ongoing failure of their live service strategy, admitting there is a possibility that Marathon could still be cancelled.
Up until now, the PlayStation 3 has been Sony’s only major home console failure, when it was deemed by fans to be overly expensive and without a sufficient number of high quality exclusive games. But despite its poor start it still ended up outselling the Xbox 360 and Sony seemed to learn all the right lessons from its difficulties, when it came to the PlayStation 4.
On paper, the PlayStation 5 has been an unqualified success, with Sony this week announcing that shipments have hit 80.3 million and are up over 4% year on year this quarter. But with Xbox Series X/S console sales continuing to freefall, there’s increasingly little choice for anyone looking for a home console that plays high-end AAA titles.
So while the PlayStation 5 has won by default, in terms of hardware, its software line-up has come under heavy criticism for the past three years, with fans increasingly frustrated at the paucity of first party exclusives and Sony’s unjustified obsession with live service games.
Sony is hardly the only company to have chased the success of Fortnite and other forever games but what has caused controversy is that around two years into this generation they seem to have told all, or most, of their internal developers to make live service titles instead of single-player titles.
We say ‘seem’ because Sony has never explained its policy in public, which has only added to the frustration. Especially as there’s some sign that they may have U-turned a year or so ago, with the exit of former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, but have never clarified any change in direction.
The situation reached a nadir with the spectacular failure of first person shooter Concord, which is reported to have cost $400 million to make and only lasted two weeks. And yet in the aftermath Sony was quick to insist that it was still committed to more live service titles.
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In the absence of any explanation from Sony itself, the obvious reason for continuing, despite the continued failures, is that it’s what shareholders and investors want to hear. They’re not interested in an award-winning single-player, that has only a finite lifetime as a big seller, but in a title that can bring in consistently high profits for decades – primarily via microtransactions and DLC.
Speaking in a Q&A following the latest financial results, Chief Financial Officer Lin Tao admitted that, ‘Last year Concord, and this year Marathon, was postponed, so somewhat negative news has been coming out.
‘But if we look at the past five years, five years ago live service games were almost non-existent for PlayStation Studios. We have Helldivers 2, MLB: The Show, and Gran Turismo 7, and Bungie’s Destiny 2, so we have these four live services contributing to sales and profits in a stable manner.’
However, considering the rapidly declining fortunes of Destiny 2, the age of Gran Turismo 7, and the lack of global reach for baseball game MLB: The Show, that’s not a very impressive list.
The only real success Sony has had so far is with Helldivers 2, which ironically is the only one not made by an internal first party studio. The game’s continued popularity has led to Sony taking the unusual step of planning an Xbox Series X/S release on August 26.
This seems to part of a general move towards more multiformat releases – which again Sony has failed to explain in public, leaving fans unable to do anything but guess at what their policies might be in the future.
Tao tried to make things sound better by saying that 40% of first party software revenue for the quarter came from live service games, but considering the only notable game they’ve published this year is the externally developed Death Stranding 2, that doesn’t seem significant. Especially as she admitted that for the full year it’s only between 20 and 30%.
‘In terms of the transformation, it’s not entirely going smoothly,’ said Tao. ‘But from a longer-term perspective, if you look at the changes over five years you see that there’s definitely been a change.
‘Of course, we recognise that there are still many issues, so we should learn the lessons from mistakes and make sure that we introduce live service content where there’s less waste and it’s more smooth.’
Asked about Destiny 2 developer Bungie, which Sony bought in 2022 for $3.6 billion but which began to struggle almost immediately, Tao confirmed that the plan was to increasingly erode Bungie’s independence and fully integrate it into PlayStation Studios.
That’s not necessarily as bad as it sounds, as Bungie staff have frequently blamed their own management for the company’s problems, and many seem to feel they would do no worse with Sony directly in charge.
‘At the time of acquisition we were offering a very independent environment, so that was one way of thinking,’ said Tao. ‘However, thereafter, we have gone through structural reform, as we announced last year, so this independence is getting lighter and Bungie is shifting into a role which is becoming more part of PlayStation Studios, and integration is proceeding.’
She didn’t rule out the possibility of current live service project Marathon being cancelled but stated that the current plan was for it to launch within the current fiscal year, i.e. before April next year.
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