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Sony has spent years building the PlayStation brand mainly around strong single-player games and AAA film productions. A few years ago, however, the company decided to strongly enter the live-service segment and began investing huge amounts of money into games-as-a-service. Former PlayStation head Jim Ryan openly spoke about the plan to create as many as 12 such projects by 2026. However, it is now known that the strategy did not yield the expected results. Many games were cancelled before launch, some projects turned out to be financial disasters, and several studios were simply closed. For many PlayStation fans, this is one of Sony's most controversial decisions in recent years.
Sony has scrapped a heap of service games and closed more studios
One of the biggest symbols of the problems has become Concord, which ended operations just moments after its launch. Soon after, the Firewalk studio responsible for the project was also closed. However, this is just the beginning of the list of issues. Sony reportedly scrapped, among others, the live-service versions of God of War, The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, and the Spider-Man project from Insomniac. In recent years, studios such as London Studio, Neon Koi, and Bluepoint Games have also ceased operations. The closure of Bluepoint, in particular, caused huge surprise, as the studio was responsible for highly acclaimed remakes such as Demon's Souls and Shadow of the Colossus.
PlayStation returns to single-player after an expensive lesson
More and more indications suggest that Sony is beginning to withdraw from its aggressive live-service strategy. The company has clearly reduced the number of projects in development and is refocusing on the classic single-player games that PlayStation has been known for over the years. The problem, however, is that many studios and projects have already been sacrificed during this strategy. Some players believe that the pursuit of the trend for service-based games has cost Sony a fortune and led to the waste of talented teams' potential. There is also increasing talk in the industry that the live-service market is becoming increasingly difficult even for the largest gaming companies.
Sony has tried to make a strong entry into the world of games-as-a-service, but many projects have ended in cancellations or studio closures. PlayStation is probably returning today to a safer model based on large single-player games, but the cost of this strategy has proven to be exceptionally high.
source: gamerant
