A former Sony executive says he would have resisted the live service model if he had remained in his previous position.
Shuhei Yoshida, who was the head of PlayStation Studios’ predecessor, Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios (and left Sony after 31 years!), spoke to Kinda Funny Games about how he believes Sony knew the risks. There were many, and to this day there is only one Sony Live Service game that we can call a success. That would be Helldivers 2, but even that wasn’t made in-house!
“I was responsible for allocating resources to what kind of games we were going to make. If the company was considering live service games, it probably wouldn’t have made sense to stop making great single-player games and put money into these service games. What they did after Hermen Hulst took over is the company and Sony put a lot more resources into these live service games. I don’t think they told Hermen to stop making single-player games, they said, “Oh yeah, those games are great, just keep doing that and we’ll give you additional resources to work on these service games and try it out.
I’m sure they knew it was risky. The chances of a game succeeding in this highly competitive genre would be small – but the company, knowing that risk, gave Hermen those resources and the chance to try it…in my opinion, the way they did it was great, and I hope some of these games become successful. And luckily Helldivers 2 did so well, nobody expected that, right? You cannot plan for success in this industry. That’s the fun part. If I were in Hermen’s position, I probably would have tried to resist that direction,” said Yoshida, who then jokingly added that this must be why he was pushed aside to oversee indie titles (and has since stopped doing that as well).
He also mentioned Bloodborne. It’s a game that was released ten years ago this year on the PlayStation 4, and has yet to receive a port or remaster for the PlayStation 5 and PC. He explained that he thinks this might not happen because From Software’s Miyazaki Hidetaka can’t do it, and he won’t let others touch the IP…
“Bloodborne has always been the most asked about, and people wonder why we haven’t really done anything like an update or remaster, which should be easy. Sony is known for doing so many remasters, right? And people get frustrated. I just have my personal theory on the situation. I left Sony, so I don’t know what’s going on, but my theory is because I remember Miyazaki really, really loved Bloodborne, you know what he created, and so I think he’s interested, but he’s so successful and he’s so busy that he can’t do it himself, but he doesn’t want anyone else to touch it. So that’s my theory and the PlayStation team respects his wishes. I’m not giving away any secrets to be clear,” Yoshida added.
His theory makes sense, doesn’t it?
Source: PCGamer,
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