Shuhei Yoshida Resisted Sony's Live Service Strategy

Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has expressed his reservations about Sony's controversial shift towards live service video games. Yoshida, who served as President of SIE Worldwide Studios for Sony Interactive Entertainment from 2008 to 2019, shared his thoughts on Sony's live service strategy during an interview with Kinda Funny Games. He revealed that Sony was well aware of the risks involved in this investment.

The discussion comes at a challenging time for PlayStation's live service ventures. While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 became a breakout success, selling 12 million copies in just 12 weeks and becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game to date, other live service titles have faced significant setbacks. Sony's Concord, for instance, experienced a catastrophic launch, lasting only a few weeks before being taken offline due to extremely low player engagement. The game was eventually canceled, and its developer was shut down, marking a costly failure for Sony. According to a Kotaku report, the initial development deal for Concord was around $200 million, which did not cover the full development costs, IP rights, or the acquisition of Firewalk Studios.

The failure of Concord followed the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer game. Moreover, Sony recently canceled two unannounced live service projects: a God of War title from Bluepoint and another from Bend, the developers of Days Gone.

Yoshida, who recently left Sony after 31 years with the company, reflected on the live service strategy during his interview. He suggested that if he were in the position of Hermen Hulst, the current Sony Interactive Entertainment Studio Business Group CEO, he would have resisted the move towards live service games. Yoshida noted that during his tenure, he managed budgets and allocated resources to various game types. He questioned the decision to divert resources from successful single-player games like God of War to live service projects.

However, Yoshida acknowledged that under Hulst's leadership, Sony provided additional resources to pursue live service games without halting single-player game development. He emphasized that Sony understood the risks, given the competitive nature of the live service genre, but was willing to take the chance. Yoshida expressed hope that some of these games would eventually succeed, citing the unexpected success of Helldivers 2 as an example of the unpredictable nature of the gaming industry.

In a recent financial call, Sony president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki discussed the lessons learned from both Helldivers 2 and Concord. He admitted that Sony should have implemented development gates, such as user testing and internal evaluations, much earlier in the development process of Concord. Totoki suggested that earlier intervention could have allowed for improvements before the game's launch.

Totoki also highlighted issues with 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. He stressed the need for better coordination across organizational boundaries and more strategic release windows to avoid cannibalization and maximize performance.

During the same call, Sony senior vice president for finance and IR Sadahiko Hayakawa compared the launches of Helldivers 2 and Concord, emphasizing the importance of sharing lessons learned across Sony's studios. He outlined plans to strengthen the development management system by focusing on title development management and the continuous addition of content post-launch. Hayakawa also mentioned Sony's intention to build an optimal title portfolio that balances single-player games, which have a higher predictability of success due to established IP, with live service games that carry more risk but offer potential upside.

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