The company believes that, after so many failures, it will eventually find a gaming-as-a-service model that works. According to the president of PlayStation, the company still sees this field as a challenge and has no intention of changing course.
This console generation has been strange due to factors that are mostly beyond the control of the companies. From the pandemic and the semiconductor crisis, we have moved on to the current price increases of memory components. However, there is one situation for which Sony can only blame itself: the failure of games as a service. The company opted for a complete change of direction, abandoning the single-player narrative experiences that characterized PlayStation consoles to pursue new trends. It has backfired spectacularly, but, and this may surprise you, they do not want to change course.
PlayStation Will Continue to Focus on Games as a Service
Hideaki Nishino, president of PlayStation, stated in an interview with Famitsu that the company still has faith in games as a service. “We believe that games as a service are content that appeals to users on a global level, so we will continue to revitalize the market with both first-party and third-party games,” the executive explained. He went on to say that this was a “relatively new” type of game and that the brand wanted to “continue challenging itself” by trying to find success in this space. It is a task in which, it should be noted, they have not had much luck so far.
One reason this news is particularly surprising is that just two days ago, hundreds of layoffs took place at Bungie. The studio has not found the expected success with Marathon, which struggled to surpass 10,000 concurrent users on Steam last week. Concord also failed, arguably becoming one of the most notorious flops in video game history, while many other projects were cancelled midway through development. There are even games in limbo, such as Fairgame$, which has been in development since 2023 and, for unknown reasons, was nowhere to be seen at the latest State of Play.
The focus on games as a service has made the PlayStation 5 the Sony console with the fewest exclusive single-player games. By dedicating a significant portion of its studios to creating these kinds of titles, the development of the games that had defined the brand in recent generations slowed down. Just a week ago, for example, we marked the sixth anniversary of The Last of Us Part II. It was a bittersweet anniversary, marked by uncertainty over when Naughty Dog, which also worked on a multiplayer-as-a-service version of the series that was ultimately cancelled, will release its next game. It certainly does not look like it will happen any time soon.
Reiterating Nishino’s words, the PlayStation president confirmed that the company will continue to release its multiplayer games on PC and other platforms. Conversely, its current plan is to release single-player narrative games exclusively on its own consoles.
Source: 3DJuegos
