It was announced that PlayStation plans to launch “more than 10” Live-Service games by the march of 2026, putting into perspective why Sony was willing to spend nearly $4 Billion dollars to Aquire Bungie. Speaking during the latest earnings call for Sony, CFO Hiroki Totoki Stated that “through close collaboration with Bungie and the PlayStation Studios, we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026.”
In context, a live-service game is a title that receives constant updates instead of sequels, usually intended to continue drawing its audience in over the course of several years. They are also known for a heavy reliance on microtransactions, loot boxes, or gatcha elements to make a profit. These elements are what are used to continue to support the game moving forward.
These games do tend to draw in huge profits, as Totoki pointed out when he stated:
From calendar year 2014 to calendar year 2021, the size of the global game content market doubled, driven by add-on content revenue from live game services, which grew at an average annual rate of 15% during this period. We expect this trend to continue going forward.
, the studio behind Destiny, got in on the trend early which Sony views as a benefit, citing their “a wealth of experience and superb technology in the space,” as a major asset in the acquired studio. Totoki went on to state that:
The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise as well as major new IP that Bungie is currently developing, but also in incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies that Bungie has developed in the live game services space. We intend to utilize these strengths when developing game IP at the PlayStation Studios, as we expand into the live game services area.
This plan ushers in a major shift for Sony going forward, with the studio first-party IPs tending to be narrative-driven experiences. Given that Call of Duty, a franchise that Sony had had a partnership with for years, will now be owned by Microsoft in the Activision Blizzard acquisition, it makes sense the company might explore first-party avenues like this to have complete control over them.
Currently, we know that Bungie has a new IP in the works that many people suspect might be one of the live-service titles they are referring to. The recently aquired Firesprite has also stated they are developing an FPS which could be also part of this. Interestingly enough, based on statements made saying that Bungie will remain multiplatform, it could be possible many of these live-service games might not release exclusively for PlayStation.
It has been rumored that Sony is currently working on a competitor to the popular Xbox Game Pass, codenamed Sparticus. Up to this point, it has seemed hard for Sony to compete given that their money was invested primarily in narrative games. Their push into live service could in the long run be a way support this new subscription service. That being said even single-player games on that platform have begun to move into it, with Ghost of Tsushima getting multiplayer that eventually became standalone, and The Last of Us Part II set to receive a standalone multiplayer.
