While Sony faced quite a few setbacks with its push for live-service games over the last few years, leading to several project cancellations, studio closures, and the much-mocked release of Concord, the company hasn’t given up on these aspirations just yet. In an interview with Famitsu, Sony Interactive Entertainment president Hideaki Nishino said that there is still interest at the company for more live-service releases.
He said that, along with looking at what kinds of live-service games it can release by working with first-party and third-party studios, PlayStation has also been looking into what it can do with some of the older live-service titles under its banner, like Helldivers 2. As for new releases, Nishino is excited about the upcoming release of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls on August 6th.
“We believe that live service games are content that attracts users on a global level, so we want to continue to revitalize the market through both first-party and third-party content,” said Nishino. “We are not only focusing on promoting new releases, but also considering what we can do with older titles in the medium to long term. Also, this year we are planning to release our own live service title, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and we hope everyone will enjoy it.”
When it comes to whether PlayStation has any plans to slow down or reconsider its live-service efforts, Nishino said that the company finds it “important to continuously provide something.”
“The genre itself is relatively new, and I think many people are trying various things, so we also want to continue to take on challenges within that context.”
Nishino also provided some more clarity on PlayStation’s plans for multi-platform releases for its first-party games. He said that the decision of whether or not a release should be exclusive to PS5 largely comes down to a few characteristics, like how many players need to be in the game for it to be considered a success. With this in mind, single-player games will largely be exclusive to PlayStation consoles, while multiplayer games, which need larger audiences, will come to PC as well.
“Originally, platform selection is determined based on the characteristics of each title,” explained Nishino. “If releasing on PC can maximize the gaming experience of a title, we will continue to consider it. Our main policy at the moment is that for single-player games developed as a first party, we will further refine the value of the gaming experience that we can provide on PlayStation, while for live service games, we believe it is also important to have more people play through online multiplayer, so we are considering PS5 and PC as the basic platforms for release.”
Discussing the future of PlayStation, Nishino explained that the company wants to “develop new game console experiences” by making use of new technologies that can “be used in various forms”. Interestingly, he also vaguely hinted at the possibility of the rumored handheld PS6 being in the works.
“PlayStation is strongly associated with playing on a living room TV, but we plan to release monitors and speakers so that it can be played comfortably in other locations as well,” he said. “The PlayStation Portal was developed as part of this effort. We want to continue thinking and challenging ourselves to provide game experiences that suit increasingly diverse lifestyles.”
