{"id":661204,"date":"2026-06-27T14:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/661204\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T14:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:05:11","slug":"sony-will-continue-to-chase-live-service-dream-despite-mostly-disastrous-execution-to-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/661204\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony Will Continue to Chase Live Service Dream, Despite Mostly Disastrous Execution to Date"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sony<\/a> Image: Push Square<\/p>\n

Sony has had some success with live service, but in a week where it gutted Bungie<\/a>, the team it bought for $3.7 billion<\/a> with the intention of establishing a \u2018Live Service Centre of Excellence<\/a>\u2019, it\u2019s hard to say things have gone well.<\/p>\n

Yes, Helldivers 2<\/a> has been very successful, and the likes of Gran Turismo 7<\/a> and MLB The Show<\/a> have remained evergreen hits.<\/p>\n

But Concord<\/a> remains the most embarrassing failure in PlayStation history, Fairgames<\/a> still isn\u2019t out, and the initiative has claimed many unfortunate casualties, like well-loved studio Bluepoint<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite all of that, boss Hideaki Nishino is not giving up.<\/p>\n

Asked by Famitsu<\/a> what the future holds for its live service plans, he said it\u2019s what \u201cattracts users on a global level\u201d.<\/p>\n

To be fair to Nishino, as much as readers of this site may not want to hear that, he\u2019s right. The most played games on the PS5 are all live service, and the microtransactions within them have become Sony\u2019s biggest money maker.<\/p>\n

Love or loathe it, I personally don\u2019t think it\u2019s wrong to pursue this market.<\/p>\n

The problem has always come down to execution for me, and to Nishino\u2019s credit, he does appear to indicate that the firm has been learning.<\/p>\n

He explained: \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls<\/a>, the superhero-themed fighter from Arc System Works, is its next crack in the space \u2013 and I don\u2019t think any of us are disappointed by the existence of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope everyone will enjoy it,\u201d he beamed. \u201cWe would be happy if it becomes popular.\u201d<\/p>\n

The great irony here is that fans have spent the last month<\/a> begging Sony for Destiny 3<\/a>, and its response to that this week has been to lay off almost half of the team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I understand there are larger issues at Bungie and making a new Destiny would cost an exorbitant amount of money, but that\u2019s probably something it should have considered when it purchased the studio.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not against PlayStation continuing to explore live service, but I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s a way to do this differently.<\/p>\n

[source famitsu.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\tSee Also<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/p>\n

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Push Square Sony has had some success with live service, but in a week where it gutted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,217569,555,112,622,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-661204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-hideaki-nishino","tag-industry","tag-ps5","tag-sony","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}