Shuhei Yoshida Resisted Sony's Live Service Strategy

Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida recently expressed his reservations about Sony's controversial push into live service video games. During his tenure as President of SIE Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019, Yoshida told Kinda Funny Games that Sony was aware of the risks associated with investing in live service games. His comments come at a time when PlayStation's live service games have experienced a rollercoaster of successes and failures.

While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 achieved remarkable success, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, other Sony live service titles have not fared as well. Notably, Sony's Concord turned into one of the biggest video game disasters in PlayStation's history, lasting only a few weeks due to extremely low player numbers before being taken offline and ultimately canceled. The financial impact was significant, with initial development costs reportedly reaching $200 million, according to Kotaku, though this did not cover the entire development or the acquisition of the Concord IP or Firewalk Studios.

The failure of Concord followed Sony's decision to cancel Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer game. Additionally, Sony reportedly canceled two other unannounced live service games this week: a God of War title from Bluepoint and another from Bend Studio, the developers behind Days Gone.

Yoshida, who recently left Sony after 31 years, discussed the shift towards live service games in his interview. He stated that if he had been in the position of current Sony Interactive Entertainment Studio Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst, he would have resisted the move towards live service games. Yoshida explained, "For me, I was managing this budget, so I was responsible for allocating money to what kinds of games to make. If the company was considering [going] that way, it probably didn’t make sense to stop making another God of War or single-player game, and put all the money into the live service games."

He further elaborated on the strategy Sony adopted under Hulst's leadership, where the company provided additional resources to pursue live service games while continuing to develop single-player titles. Yoshida acknowledged the inherent risks, stating, "I’m sure they knew it was risky. The chance of a game becoming successful in this hugely competitive genre would be small. However, the company, knowing that risk, gave Hermen the resources and chance to try it. I think that’s the way they did it. In my mind, that’s great, and hopefully some games will become successful."

The unexpected success of Helldivers 2 was highlighted by Yoshida as a testament to the unpredictability and excitement of the gaming industry. He hoped that Sony's strategy would eventually pay off, despite his own reservations about the direction.

In a recent financial call, Sony president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki reflected on the lessons learned from both Helldivers 2 and Concord. He emphasized the need for earlier development gates, including user testing and internal evaluations, to address issues before a game's launch. Totoki admitted, "Currently we are still in the process of learning... We should have done those gates much earlier than we did."

Totoki also pointed to Sony's "siloed organization" and the timing of Concord's release, which coincided with the launch of the successful Black Myth: Wukong on PS5 and PC, suggesting that better coordination and timing could have mitigated the impact of market cannibalization.

During the same call, Sony senior vice president for finance and IR Sadahiko Hayakawa compared the launches of Helldivers 2 and Concord, stating that the company would share the lessons learned across its studios. He outlined plans to strengthen development management systems and build an optimal title portfolio that balances Sony's strengths in single-player games with the potential of live service titles.

Looking ahead, several PlayStation live service games are still in development, including Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$.