Shuhei Yoshida Resisted Sony's Live Service Shift

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 well aware of the risks associated with investing in live service games, a sentiment that has been underscored by recent developments in PlayStation's live service offerings.

The PlayStation live service landscape has been turbulent. While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 achieved remarkable success, selling 12 million copies in just 12 weeks and becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game, other ventures have not fared as well. Sony's Concord, for instance, turned into a significant disappointment, barely lasting a couple of weeks due to low player engagement before Sony decided to terminate the game and shut down its developer. The financial impact was substantial, with initial development costs reportedly reaching around $200 million, as noted by Kotaku, excluding additional expenses such as IP rights and studio acquisition.

Following Concord's failure, Sony canceled several 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.

Yoshida, who recently left Sony after 31 years, reflected on the company's strategy during his tenure and suggested that if he were in the current CEO Hermen Hulst's position, he would have resisted the shift toward live service games. He explained that during his time, the focus was on balancing budgets and deciding which types of games to fund. Yoshida noted that Sony, under Hulst's leadership, received additional resources to pursue live service games while continuing to support single-player titles, acknowledging the high risk and competitive nature of live service games.

Sony's president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki, in a recent financial call, discussed the lessons learned from the contrasting fortunes of Helldivers 2 and Concord. Totoki admitted that Sony should have implemented development checkpoints, such as user testing and internal evaluations, much earlier in Concord's development process. He also highlighted issues with Sony's "siloed organization" and the timing of Concord's release, which coincided with the launch of Black Myth: Wukong, potentially leading to market cannibalization.

Sadahiko Hayakawa, Sony's senior vice president for finance and IR, emphasized the importance of sharing lessons from both successful and failed launches across Sony's studios. He stressed the need to enhance development management and content scaling post-launch, aiming to create an optimal portfolio that balances Sony's proven strengths in single-player games with the potential upside of live service titles.

Looking ahead, several PlayStation live service games are still in development, including Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$. These projects will be crucial in determining the future direction and success of Sony's live service strategy.