as expensive as building consoles is, sony has enough data from this generation to understand that consoles pay by themselves long term thanks to digital stuff alone, not counting actual games so that's why it's good for the ps5 to decline as much as possible before the release of new consoles. It's showing that either they sacrifice money at the beginning to ensure money long term or they don't make any money lol. 

They aren't MS, if PS struggles they struggle as a whole and a desperate company is the best kind of company. 

Crazy to me that they're still trying after what has already resulted from Jim Ryan's big live service push. Concord flopped, Marathon badly underperformed (it has now fallen to #173 on Steam most played), at least 6 cancellations so far, Twisted Metal live service by Firesprite, God of War live service by Bluepoint, TLOU live service by Naughty Dog, a new IP live service game by Playstation Bend, a likely CoD clone by CoD veterans at Deviation Games, and a new IP fantasy co-op live service game at Playstation London. Meanwhile they still potentially have 3 known live service games in development, Fairgames and live service games for Horizon and Spider-Man, we haven't heard about any of those 3 being canceled at least.

"PlayStation Boss Says New Console Experiences Will Involve 'Leveraging Technologies That Can Be Used in Various Forms and Locations' — and I'm Convinced He's Teasing a PS6 Handheld"

https://www.ign.com/articles/playstation-boss-says-new-console-experiences-will-involve-leveraging-technologies-that-can-be-used-in-various-forms-and-locations-and-im-convinced-hes-teasing-a-ps6-handheld?utm_source=threads

Are you talking about the live service Spider-Man game from the Insomniac leak? Because Jason Schreier said at the time that it was canceled a good while ago.

Yeah, didn't realize that one was cancelled. So that only leaves 2 known ones then I think, Horizon Hunters Gathering and Fairgames.

He also said Sony is still chasing the live service dream despite having experienced several times now its challenges.

It really feels like Sony is even more stupid than I could imagine. Once more liveservices games bomb as hard as they have been they will just go on closing more studios and raising service prices because someone has to pay for their mistakes.

With hardware prices increasing so much they are rapidly losing any room for big mistakes tho.

Good Job Sony!

The only shocking thing about Nishino's comments on live service games is everyone's reactions if you ask me lol

On a surface level, Sony already has 3 successful live service games: MLB, Gran Turismo and Helldivers 2. MLB gets yearly releases and Helldivers 2, alongside Marathon, are still being supported by Sony. On top of this, Sony still has to release Tokon, Horizon HG, 4Loop, Fairgames (break in?), and Gummy Bears.

They are currently supporting 3 live-service games, and have around 6 more in development for releases. So what exactly is surprising that they are still in the live-service game? Games are getting more expensive to make, especially with rising salaries, that a live service success is definitely a net positive for Sony and the specific developer team involved.

I do think Sony needs to focus more on publishing live-service rather than just developing them (Helldivers, 4Loop, Tokon) as they try to sort things out. Or at the very least, only green-light well conceived ideas from internal studios. But most definitely, they need to have more stringent measures in place to faster cut off a live service title if it is obvious the team can't handle it, and then pivot them quickly to something more traditional. But game economy is not in a good place for either devs or consumers. So I imagine this is quite tough.

The live service comments aren't too concerning as long as their core teams deliver single player games that Playstation are known for.

They've had a success with Helldivers 2 and probably done the maths to say it's worth continued investment although I'd hope more restrained & calculated. I.e fewer games and not pushing it/endorsing it from all their teams like they seemed to be doing 5 years ago.

Of course they are still going to make live service games. They count Marvel TOKON as live service, Helldivers 2 was live service. GT7 is under that umbrella now too.

The issue was never they were making live service but the amount they were making and how unappealing some of them were. Not every studio should be making them and they shouldn't be trend chasing.

Live Service covers a wide variety of games, they just need to stop chasing the extraction shooter / hero shooter BS.

Yes there will be a Helldivers 3 at some point, there will be a GT8, there will be more games like Marvel TOKON.