PlayStation Studios will continue to focus on live service games in the future, with nine development teams working on them, as opposed to the seven focusing on single-player games with a narrative focus.
In today’s Business Segment Meeting 2024 for its Game & Network Services Segment, Sony confirmed the names of the seven studios focusing on single-player games with a narrative focus – Asobi, Insomniac Games, Santa Monica Studio, Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, Firesprite and Housemarque, and the nine working on pure live service games or hybrid titles – Bungie, San Diego Studio, Firewalk, Haven and Neon Koi for pure live service games and Guerrilla Games, Polyphony, Media Molecule and Bend Studio. The last remaining studios – Bluepoint, Nixxes, and Valkyrie are listed as partner studios. With more studios focusing on live service games rather than single-player games, we should expect more of the former to come out under the PlayStation Studios label in the future.
The focus on live service games, however, should not impact PlayStation’s most iconic franchises, as tentpole titles, existing hit franchises, and new IPs with high ambitions from studios with proven track records of quality and success will continue to be a central part of SIE’s focus for the future, alongside experimental titles that will showcase innovation, unlock new audiences and target new genres. These titles will be high potential games with discipline on scope and budget.
It will take a while to see if PlayStation Studios’ focus on live service games will ultimately pay off. It is likely going to take some time even to see some of these titles in action, as today’s State of Play is likely not going to focus on first-party titles much. For that, we may have to wait until September, when a proper Showcase is rumored to be scheduled.
