PlayStation has 2 new live service games coming before March 2023

Sony has two as yet unannounced live service games coming to PlayStation by March 2023, with a plan to launch 12 live service games by March 2026. It’s all part of a rebalancing of Sony’s business to invest equally in continuing to produce its critically acclaimed single player titles and take advantage of the boom in live service gaming over the past few years.

Having already been announced back in February, Sony’s decision is fuelled by market trends. PS5 owner game spending has increased 15% compared to the first 18 months of the PS4, but that’s included a 21% reduction in spending on full games, while add-on content (microtransactions, live service expansion) has boomed by 247%.

PlayStation financials FY22

Free to play spending (on PS4) makes up 25% of PS Store revenues, compared to just 5% five years ago, thanks to games like Fortnite, Warzone, Apex Legends and Genshin Impact.

So Sony needs to diversify if they want a slice of that pie for themselves, and has been doing so with some of its key acquisitions and behind the scenes investments. Over the coming year (FY22), Sony effectively split its investment 50:50 between traditional and live service game development. This will reduce its spending on traditional games relative to FY19, but not by much, as spending will have increased overall. Investment in traditional games will have recovered by FY25.

All in all, it makes sense for Sony to diversify its portfolio, without jettisoning its existing strengths – we saw them do this in the past when they gave up on the FPS market after the PS4 launched.

Well, for one thing, many of Sony’s biggest studios are large enough to have multiple projects on the go at once. Naughty Dog has continued to work on a standalone The Last of Us multiplayer game, while there have been persistent rumours and hiring at Guerrilla Games for a new multiplayer game. In the last couple of days, London Studio announced hiring for a PS5 multiplayer game as well. If we want to do a little bit of creative accounting, then Gran Turismo 7 could also be considered a live service game with a steady stream of updates and content additions expected.

So that’s three, maybe four already accounted for, but Sony has (just like Microsoft) been beefing up its internal PlayStation Studios. The announced $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie isn’t just about Destiny 2, but also what the company is working on for their next new IP, and they snapped up Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios, who are also working on a new live service. We know that Firesprite was acquired with the studio already working on new projects, and fresh rumours of a Twisted Metal reboot at the studio. The company has continued to foster relationships with external studios, which led to Destruction AllStars‘ release in early 2021, a game which could count as a live service title.

via Daniel Ahmad

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