{"id":90501,"date":"2025-08-24T23:51:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T23:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90501\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T23:51:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T23:51:12","slug":"the-number-of-live-service-games-is-not-important-ps5-boss-gives-rare-insight-into-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/90501\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Number of Live Service Games Is Not Important’: PS5 Boss Gives Rare Insight into Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Earlier in the generation<\/a>, Sony famously announced plans to release 10 live service titles, as it looked to diversify its first-party offering and create lucrative recurring revenue streams.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s been a year since the disastrous first-person shooter Concord<\/a> released and was subsequently shuttered, which has prompted the platform holder to make some sweeping changes internally.<\/p>\n

In a rare interview with the Financial Times<\/a> (paywalled), PS Studio boss Hermen Hulst has outlined the changes the manufacturer has made to avoid this problem from repeating.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also hinted that his company is no longer interested in the quantity of live service games it makes \u2013 but the quality of a diverse offering instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number [of live service games] is not so important. What is important to me is having a diverse set of player experiences and a set of communities. We have since put in place much more rigorous and more frequent testing in very many different ways. The advantage of every failure\u2009is that people now understand how necessary that [oversight] is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The article explains that PlayStation is now doing much more group testing, it\u2019s encouraging intelligence sharing between studios, and it\u2019s fostering a closer relationship between executives.<\/p>\n

But the challenge for Sony, and Hulst specifically, is allowing its portfolio of developers to flex their creative talents, while still subscribing to the firm\u2019s overall goal of never-ending growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want teams to always play it safe, but I would like for us, when we fail, to fail early and cheaply,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Watch on YouTube <\/a><\/p>\n

Subscribe to Push Square<\/a> on YouTube160k<\/a><\/p>\n

This would perhaps explain the sheer number of cancellations within PS Studios recently; we know projects have been binned<\/a> at Bluepoint, Bend Studio, and Firesprite \u2013 perhaps an admission that it\u2019s best to pull the plug early rather than leave things too late.<\/p>\n

It seems, when it comes to new intellectual property, Sony is looking at the bigger picture. It\u2019s no longer enough to deliver a great game \u2013 it needs to be something that can also be adapted into anime, film, television, manga, comics, and more.<\/p>\n

Hulst explained:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take a very intentional approach to IP creation [\u2026]\u2009understanding how a new concept can turn into an iconic franchise for PlayStation that can then again become a franchise for people beyond gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

While we don\u2019t love everything we\u2019re reading here, we can see what Sony is trying to do.<\/p>\n

Many miss the days when PlayStation would put its development budget behind all sorts of weird and wonderful projects, like Vib Ribbon<\/a> and PAIN<\/a>. But it\u2019s mostly ceded that space to indie developers these days \u2013 although, to be fair, it\u2019s still actively empowering creators around the globe with its Hero Project<\/a> programmes.<\/p>\n

It strikes us that PlayStation\u2019s first-party is now all about building brands that both help sell consoles and feed Sony\u2019s wider strategy of becoming an entertainment juggernaut. It\u2019d certainly help explain its focus on franchises like God of War<\/a>, Horizon<\/a>, and even the upcoming Physint<\/a> \u2013 all of which have cross-media potential.<\/p>\n

And of course, the live service aspect is still high on its agenda: PlayStation is making the vast amount of its money via microtransactions purchased within a handful of games. It just seems it has more fail safes in place to ensure a flop like Concord never occurs again.<\/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 Earlier in the generation, Sony famously announced plans to release 10 live service titles, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,45199,555,112,622,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-90501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-hermen-hulst","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\/90501","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=90501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}