Man it's just crazy how much money they burned on development and acquiring studios for the output to basically have ended up being Destruction AllStars, Helldivers 2, Concord and Marathon only.
They can, just not how they are currently organised.
Just have Multiuplayer modes for some of their other single player games.
Uncharted, TLOU had great MP modes. If they make a single player shooter like Killzone, or anything, have a simple MP mode, not some huge gaas only game with no single player.
Sometimes having MP mode for some games wont be bad.
They also have GT, MLB, Tokon, Helldivers 2 as MP. So its not all bad. They can slowly add more if done properly.
I’d rather they try a bunch of other single player genres, and some have MP modes. After doubling down on what there current studios do best
We are not in the 2000s anymore. Back then they could tack on these multiplayer modes because that was the most every game ever did (on consoles at least). People back then didn't have an expectation of multiplayer being a live service with constant content updates, battle passes, balance updates etc. Another reason why they added such modes in the first place is to stop people from finishing a game and dumping it on the used market. Unironically these tacked-on multiplayer modes were a side effect of physical games and with most purchases being digital now they have become redundant.
Now there are dozens of full live service games out there that people have been investing years of their time and money into. A tacked-on multiplayer mode will not only live up to those standards but they have no reason to even play it because they are already dedicating their time to another multiplayer game.
Not to mention that game development is way more expensive right now. Adding one of these multiplayer modes would cost the same as making an entire game would've cost back then, and the presence of such a multiplayer mode wouldn't really lead to a boost in sales that offsets the cost.
Just look at Ghost of Yotei, are people really buying that game for the online multiplayer? Are people even playing it? Imho if you're gonna do multiplayer make it a separate game and do it as GAAS so you actually make bank on the off chance it lands or just don't bother at all.
And miss out on Helldivers 2? Tokon might not sell gangbusters but its liked.
They just have to be smarter with what they invest in and manage better. .
They’ve made way too many silly decisions this gen, especially when they had a much clearer, better and easier path laid out from the get go. They had it on a plate
At this point it's not unreasonable to think their live services misses have undone all the profit they made with Helldivers 2.
@Yrassinad there we have it, the "+" regarding development costs in their financial report
I don't think this is related to that at all, that thing in the report was the absence of an increased development cost they had corrected for back in Q2 2025.
He's really grasping at the straws. They blew off 60% of their development resources.
Source: Sony themselves in 2023.
I was optimistic about the games, and even enjoyed some of them but this is clearly an objective failure. Most of them didn't even ship but hey at least we got Helldivers 2
If they focused on traditional games, sure maybe some of those would've flopped too but at the very least they add onto the library. When a gaas game fails, it's gone for good.
Well to be fair as you can see that 40% on single player games is still bigger than the 88% earmarked for single player games back in 2019. Of course games now cost more to make so that has actually resulted in a decrease in single player output.
But I also don't think that 60% they earmarked for live service shit would've gone to singleplayer games instead. In an alternate reality where they didn't chase the live service dragon they might've had the exact same single player budget and output and just have had a higher profit margin.
No grasping at straws at all. They spent hundreds of millions on some Live Service failures, ended up generating 1.5B + recurring annual revenue from Helldivers 2. Worth it. Next.
Do you even know what a VC fund is? Look under the hood. It's the exact same. It's part of the process. Sony would gladly waste billions if they could get just 1 fortnite level success.
Hundreds of millions? That's what the games themselves might've cost. But on top of that they spent money on acquisitions, and the Bungie one alone is almost $4bn. Marathon hasn't made them a cent in profit and Destiny looked like it was barely or not profitable either.
I don't think you can definitively say the Helldivers 2 success undid all the money they wasted on live service flops.
They'll end releasing the 12 planned, maybe one more.
They knew that as part of normal development some of them weren't going to last after release (so far case of 2, probably soonish 3 with Midnight Murder Club), some of them were going to be cancelled (so far 5, Convallaria could join them soon) and that many pitches weren't going to be greenlighted (we know the case of two, very likely there were way more).
The list of 12 IPs is this one:
- MLB series - Successful
- Gran Turismo (7) - Succesful
- Helldivers (2) - Successful
- Marvel Tokon - In the market, seems fine in console and that didn't meet expectations in PC
- Destiny (2, Rising) - In the market, didn't meet expectattions
- Marathon - In the market, didn't meet expectations
- Midnight Murder Club - In the market, I assume didn't meet expectations
- Firewall (Ultra) - Released, failed and got shut down
- Concord - Released, failed and got shut down
- Horizon (Hunters Gathering, Steel Frontiers) - Under development, HG got multiple closed betas
- 4loop - Under development, got multiple closed betas
- Team LFG new IP - Under development (mobile & PC focused)
- Convallaria - Under development (maybe cancelled?)
Deviation new IP - cancelledLondon Studio new IP - cancelledBend Studio new IP - cancelledGoW MP title (assuming it got greenlighted, wasn't a mobile game and wssn't a MP mode for Laufey) - cancelledFairgame$ - cancelled
Weren't greenlighted, so there wasn't anything to cancel:
- Twisted Metal
- Spider-Man The Great Web (assuming it was a GaaS standalone game, in the leaked Insomniac roadmaps and resource allocation docs it only appeared pitched MP modes, not any Spider-Man GaaS title)
When 2 out of 3 of your "successes" are series Sony has been making already since the PS1 (GT) and PS2 (MLB) generation that retroactively got lumped under the live service banner, it's safe to say the whole initiative has been a massive misfire.
Is there a bigger industry grifter than jade raymond?
It is crazy how her being involved in the beginnings of Assassin's Creed basically allowed her a 20-year career after that of achieving absolutely nothing in terms of releases.
