Sony is going hard on live-service games

Sony has released its financial reports for PlayStation, revealing that the PS4 and PS5 can expect to see many live-service games in the future. It even looks like there will be two more unannounced games this year.

Normally, financal reports and business plans are boring. This one, though, is very interesting despite being led by Sir Business, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan. It seems live-service games are going to be coming thick and fast over the next few years.

PlayStation's unannounced games pose a mystery

As you can see from the chart, Sony has plans to get two more live-service games to market in this fiscal year ending March 2022. Currently, the only game from PlayStation Studios announced for this year is Santa Monica Studio's God of War: Ragnarök which — unless we are about to be hit by a leviathan axe of changed intentions — is listed as a single-player game. MLB The Show 22 is one of those games, having launched this year already. Strangely, Gran Turismo 7 isn't on the list even though we would have has it pegged as another live-service title given all the free updates it gets.

That suggests that the long-rumoured, Naughty Dog-acknowledged The Last of Us: Factions might be released this year, possibly alongside The Last of Us PS5 remaster. As for the second game, we just don't know.

In the future, however, we can expect plenty more live-service games. In FY23 there are six, in FY24 there are ten, and in FY25 there are twelve. It should be noted that these are ongoing, though — so it's more like three more next year, followed by four more in FY24, with another two in FY25. This lines up with Jim Ryan's statement about bringing ten live-service games to market by 2025.

That is a lot of investment and given the rate that games are eating up player time with live-service models — it seems impossible that everyone sticks the landing. We are starting the bid of successful games at six, anyone thinks more? Get in the comments to let us know what you think of this strategy.

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Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about exclusives like The Last of Us and God of War, PS Plus news, and his favourite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and explosive racers — before an evening swim.