Live Service Games Are Successful on PlayStation, So Why Can’t Sony Make Its Own?

Live service games are one of the best ways to generate continuous income as a game studio or publisher, as they require much less overall work than developing a completely new title. It’s no wonder, then, that the games-as-service model is becoming more and more popular as studios scramble for funds, as they would rather devote time to maintaining an already-existing game than building one from the ground up in order to get another surge of funding.

Unfortunately, not every publisher seems capable of creating live-service games, as can be seen in Sony’s bizarre struggle to establish one of their own.

Live Service Games Are Successful on PS4 & PS5

Despite Sony’s lack of live service games published under the PlayStation Studios name, live service titles have been a smash hit on the console. Bungie’s Destiny franchise, despite criticisms of the company, is a live service game that’s been running and earning revenue for a decade. Sea of Thieves has also been highly successful on the PlayStation after its addition, joining Helldivers 2 in earning Sony quite a bit of money in 2024. Looking at this list, it appears that Sony has more than enough live service games under its belt, but one thing stands out: none of these games were developed under Sony’s supervision.

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How Did PlayStation Cancel The Last of Us Online But Not Concord?

Despite the numerous live service titles offered on their PlayStation console, Sony Interactive Entertainment doesn’t currently lay claim to any live service games under their sundry first-party development studios and the PlayStation Studios name. Sony sees quite a bit of the revenue generated by their live service library, but they seem to be struggling with creating one to call their own. As a consequence of Concord‘s high-profile failure when it released in August of 2024, Sony has stepped back from a number of live service versions of preexisting Sony titles, instead scrapping them with little explanation.

Why Has Sony Failed to Make Its Own Live Service Game?

PlayStation hosts a bevy of different styles of live service titles, but despite the library of games to draw inspiration from, Sony hasn’t produced anything of note in the format. Its most recent cancellation, a multiplayer God of War title being developed by Bluepoint Games, was canned in early 2025 and makes the ninth in the list of binned live service games being developed by Sony subsidiaries. It joins cancelled live service versions of Spider-Man from Insomniac, The Last of Us from Naughty Dog, and a few unnamed games by subsidiary studios.

For some reason, Sony seems to be struggling to create something meaningful in the live service format. Concord spent eight years in development, starting around the same time that Overwatch did, and was released to an already-saturated market full of free-to-play hero shooters that had already established audiences. It’s unclear whether its release was a sunk-cost fallacy issue or just marked a staggering lack of awareness by the Sony market-research team, but either way, the game was a resounding failure. Unable to learn from the many games available on their console, there have been no meaningful steps from Sony and PlayStation Interactive towards an original live service game.

Sony Needs a Break From New Live Service Titles

Rather than running themselves into the brick wall of live service failure, Sony needs to ensure they’re supporting the games that made them what they are: single-player RPG experiences. The God of War, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Horizon, and Spider-Man franchises are some of Sony’s most successful, proving that Sony knows how to make an excellent action RPG that people will love. It seems pointless to announce, develop, and then cancel a live service game that won’t earn any money when that energy could be more effectively spent making games people will enjoy.

Particularly when PlayStation-hosted live service games already make Sony quite a bit of money, around 20-30% of their revenue in 2024, according to Sony CFO Lin Tao. She mentioned that live service games created a new stream of revenue that didn’t exist for the company, so Sony would continue to pursue them, but is this a mistake when they’re already making a significant amount of their money from already existing titles? It’s clear that Sony is still learning what makes a live-service game work, and it’s a bit of a waste to push a live-service angle when the publisher isn’t prepared for it.