Sony Focuses On At Least One Annual PlayStation Exclusive, While Commiting To Live Service Games

Sony recently held its business update report for PlayStation, laying out its overall strategy going forward for the console's brand, hardware, and software. In the video presentation, Hideaki Nishino (CEO and President of SIE) and Hermen Hulst (CEO and Studio Business Group) spoke about the strength of PlayStation's branding through their PC ports in recent years.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway was Sony's view on their story-driven single player games, which have been a cornerstone for the brand since late into the life of the PlayStation 3, but appear to be reduced to at least one per year, highlighting Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2 On The Beach as 2025's tent pole titles. Coinciding with this is PlayStation's commitment to dabbling into the live service ecosystem, including Bungie's upcoming extraction shooter, Marathon.

"Our single player titles consistently deliver world class narrative experiences that resonate with millions of players around the world," Hulst states. "These are our core strength, providing a base of our core revenue through consistent annual releases

"We also remain committed to building a diverse and resilient portfolio of live service titles," Hulst continues. "We are building only successes, leveraging key learnings as we look to the future to further refine our capabilities."

This is likely an indicator that the flop that was Concord, 2024's multiplayer hero shooter, will not dissuade them from exploring more live service options with Marathon, which has been reported to have its share of issues and controversies in its development. Given the success that Arrowhead Studios' Helldivers II have been for Sony, with a lot of its active player base being on PC, they no doubt wish to capitalize on this. Whether or not Marathon can overcome its hurdles, that will remain to be seen. Sony currently has four studios devoted to live service games (Bungie, Haven, Sony San Diego, and the newly formed teamLGF). Sony San Diego handles development for MLB The Show, and Haven is currently working on an extraction shooter titled Fairgame$.

Live service games may be a permanent fixture in modern gaming, as these companies would like a steady stream of revenue to bank on. Despite the $400 million Sony lost on Concord, they aren't taking the lesson they could have learned from the success of Astro Bot (2024's Game of the Year) and capitalize on leaner budgets leading to greater returns. Death Stranding 2 On The Beach is scheduled to launch June 26th 2025, and Ghost of Yotei planned for October 2nd. Naughty Dog's Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and Marvel's Wolverine from Insomniac are planned for 2026.

SOURCE: Sony Group Corporation