PlayStation delays six live service games to ensure ‘game quality’

Sony’s plans for 12 new live service games by 2026 have been cut in half but there’s no indication that anything has been cancelled.

Early last year, Sony said that it was planning to have 10 live service games out by 2026, later increasing that total to 12, and yet we’re right at the end of 2023 and not a single one has ever been formally announced, let alone released.

It’s assumed that The Last Of Us multiplayer spin-off, the Horizon multiplayer game, Fairgame$, Concord, and a new IP from London Studio are the first five games, but it seems there might be a large gap between them and any others, as Sony confirms it has ‘delayed’ half of its planned titles.

‘We are reviewing this… we are trying as much as possible to ensure [the games] are enjoyed and liked by gamers for a long time,’ said Sony president Sony president Hiroki Totoki. ‘Six titles will be released by financial year 2025 [i.e. by March 2026], that’s our current plan. The remaining six titles, we are still working on that.’

‘That’s the total number of live service and multiplayers titles, mid-to-long-term, we want for this kind of service and that’s the unchanged policy of the company. It’s not like we stick to certain titles, but game quality should be the most important,’ he said, via VGC.

Totoki seems to be implying, with his comment about not sticking to ‘certain titles’, that Sony wants to maintain a diverse range of game types, but the fact remains that, in terms of official announcements, it currently only has one internally developed single-player game at the moment: Insomniac’s Wolverine, which has no release date or year.

It’s not mentioned why the planned number of live service games has been slashed in half, but it’s believed to be as a result of Destiny 2 developer Bungie conducting a review of all Sony-made live service games, which apparently led to the delay of The Last Of Us spin-off.

Sony confirmed that Bungie conducted reviews of all 12 games, which was always stated as being one of the main reason they bought the developer in the first place – to help with all PlayStation live service games.

The irony is that there have been job cuts at Bungie recently, following a decline in revenues for Destiny 2 and a general ‘money saving initiative’ by Sony.

That may also have affected their reboot of Marathon, which also seems to be a live service title, although it’s not clear whether that counts as one of the original 12 Sony was planning, as Bungie had begun work on it before they were bought.

There’s also been talk of internal discontent over the pivot towards live service games, which peaked with the alleged sacking of long-serving exec Connie Booth.

Given Sony won’t want to make anything seem too negative during its financial report, it’s difficult to tell whether this constitutes a radical shift in its development plans or not, but the remaining six games are categorised as being delayed and not cancelled.

Not that it’s ever bothered to explain itself, but Sony’s sudden interest in live service games is not surprising if you look at the list of the top 10 most played games on PlayStation 5.

Depending on how you quantify Call Of Duty and EA Sports FC, all of them, with the exception of Spider-Man 2, are live service titles and yet none of them are published by Sony themselves. That’s an issue they’re still trying to address, despite the current problems.

They’re far from the only ones too, as Warner Bros. has also talked about its commitment to live service games this week, suggesting it will ‘transform’ its line-up and move away from traditional console and PC games.

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