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 critical juncture for PlayStation's live service titles, which have experienced a mix of success and failure.
While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 achieved remarkable success, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, other Sony live service games faced significant challenges. Notably, Sony's Concord turned out to be a major disappointment, lasting only a few weeks before being taken offline due to extremely low player engagement. The game was eventually canceled, and its developer was shut down. According to a report by Kotaku, the initial development budget for Concord was around $200 million, which did not cover the full development costs, the acquisition of the Concord IP rights, or the purchase of Firewalk Studios.
The failure of Concord followed the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer game. Additionally, Sony recently canceled two unannounced live service projects: a God of War title being developed by Bluepoint and another game from the developers of Days Gone at Bend Studio.
Yoshida, who left Sony after 31 years of service, reflected on the company's strategy during his tenure. He mentioned that if he were in the position of current Sony Interactive Entertainment Studio Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst, he would have resisted the shift towards live service games. Yoshida explained that while he was responsible for budget allocation, he believed it was unwise to divert resources from successful single-player titles like God of War to live service games. However, he acknowledged that under Hulst's leadership, Sony provided additional resources to explore live service games while continuing to support single-player titles.
Yoshida noted that Sony was aware of the high risk involved in the competitive live service genre but was willing to take the chance. He praised the unexpected success of Helldivers 2 and expressed hope that Sony's strategy would eventually pay off. He also humorously suggested that his resistance to the live service direction might have contributed to his departure from first-party development.
In a recent financial call, Sony president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki discussed the lessons learned from both Helldivers 2 and Concord. Totoki admitted that Sony should have implemented development checkpoints, such as user testing and internal evaluations, much earlier in the process for Concord. He emphasized the need for earlier intervention to address issues before the game's launch.
Totoki also criticized Sony's "siloed organization," suggesting that better cross-departmental collaboration could have improved Concord's development and release. He pointed out that Concord's launch timing, shortly after the successful release of Black Myth: Wukong on PS5 and PC, may have led to market cannibalization. Totoki stressed the importance of selecting optimal release windows to maximize performance.
During the same call, Sony senior vice president for finance and IR Sadahiko Hayakawa compared the launches of Helldivers 2 and Concord, highlighting the valuable lessons learned from both experiences. Hayakawa stated that these insights would be shared across Sony's studios to enhance development management and post-launch content strategies. He emphasized Sony's commitment to building a balanced portfolio that includes both single-player games, which have a higher predictability of success due to established IPs, and live service games that offer potential upside despite the inherent risks.
Looking ahead, several PlayStation live service games are still in development, including Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$.
