PlayStation Legend Shuhei Yoshida 'Would've Tried to Resist' Sony's Live Service Push

Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida revealed he would have resisted Sony's controversial push into live-service games. Yoshida, President of SIE Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019, told Kinda Funny Games that Sony acknowledged the inherent risk in this investment.

This statement comes amidst a turbulent period for PlayStation's live-service ventures. While Arrowhead's Helldivers 2 achieved remarkable success, becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever with 12 million copies sold in just 12 weeks, other live-service titles faced cancellations or disastrous launches.

Concord, a significant setback for PlayStation, exemplifies this. It lasted mere weeks before being shut down due to extremely low player numbers, ultimately leading to the closure of its developer. According to a Kotaku report, the initial development deal for Concord was approximately $200 million—insufficient to fully fund development and excluding IP rights and the acquisition of Firewalk Studios.

This failure follows the cancellation of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us multiplayer game and, more recently, two unannounced live-service titles—a God of War game from Bluepoint and another from Bend Studio (Days Gone developers).

Yoshida, who recently left Sony after 31 years, discussed PlayStation's live-service strategy in the interview. He stated that if he were current CEO Hermen Hulst, he would have pushed back against this direction when it emerged. He explained his budgetary responsibilities and the perceived imbalance of diverting resources from established franchises like God of War to less certain live-service projects.

He acknowledged Sony's increased investment in live-service games after his departure, noting that the company hadn't stopped single-player game development but rather added resources for live-service ventures. Yoshida recognized the inherent risk, the low probability of success in a highly competitive market, but understood Sony's strategy of allocating resources to explore this area. The unexpected success of Helldivers 2 highlights the unpredictability of the industry. He speculated that his resistance to this direction might have contributed to his departure.

In a recent financial call, Sony's president, COO, and CFO, Hiroki Totoki, discussed lessons learned from both Helldivers 2's success and Concord's failure. Totoki emphasized the need for earlier user testing and internal evaluations in the development process, suggesting that Concord's issues should have been addressed much sooner. He also cited Sony's "siloed organization" and Concord's release window (close to Black Myth: Wukong) as contributing factors to its failure.

Sony senior vice president for finance and IR, Sadahiko Hayakawa, compared the launches of Helldivers 2 and Concord, emphasizing the sharing of lessons learned across studios to improve development management and post-launch content. He highlighted the company's intention to balance its portfolio with both single-player titles (leveraging established IPs) and riskier live-service games.

Several PlayStation live-service games remain under development, including Bungie's Marathon, Guerrilla's Horizon Online, and Haven Studio's Fairgame$.