PlayStation Legend Shuhei Yoshida 'Would've Tried to Resist' Sony's Live Service Push

Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida revealed he would have resisted Sony's controversial push into live-service games. Yoshida, President of SIE Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019, told Kinda Funny Games that Sony acknowledged the inherent risks in this investment.

Yoshida's comments arrive amidst turbulence for PlayStation's live-service ventures. While Arrowhead's *Helldivers 2* achieved phenomenal success—becoming the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever with 12 million copies sold in 12 weeks—other live-service titles faced cancellation or disastrous launches.

Sony's *Concord* stands as a significant setback, lasting mere weeks before being shut down due to extremely low player counts. The game's closure, along with the termination of its developer, represents a substantial financial loss. Kotaku reported an initial development deal of approximately $200 million, a sum insufficient to fully fund development and not including IP rights or the acquisition of Firewalk Studios.

This failure followed the cancellation of Naughty Dog's *The Last of Us* multiplayer game and, recently, two unannounced live-service titles—a *God of War* project at Bluepoint and another at Bend Studio (creators of *Days Gone*).

Yoshida, departing Sony after 31 years, discussed PlayStation's live-service strategy in the interview, stating that if he were current CEO Hermen Hulst, he would have pushed back against the initial direction. He explained his budgetary concerns, highlighting the potential misallocation of funds away from established franchises like *God of War* in favor of live-service ventures.

Yoshida acknowledged that Sony provided increased resources after his departure, allowing for parallel development of both single-player and live-service games. He recognized the inherent risk, the low probability of success in a highly competitive market, but understood the company's strategic gamble. He conceded that *Helldivers 2*'s unexpected success highlights the unpredictability of the industry and expressed hope for the overall strategy's eventual success. He concluded by suggesting that his resistance to this direction might have contributed to his departure.

In a recent financial call, Sony's Hiroki Totoki (President, COO, and CFO) discussed lessons learned from both *Helldivers 2*'s success and *Concord*'s failure. Totoki emphasized the need for earlier user testing and internal evaluations within the development process to identify and address issues before launch. He also cited Sony's "siloed organization" and *Concord*'s release window (concurrent with *Black Myth: Wukong*) as contributing factors to its underperformance.

Sadahiko Hayakawa (Senior Vice President of Finance and IR) further compared the contrasting outcomes of *Helldivers 2* and *Concord*, highlighting the shared lessons learned and the intent to apply these across studios, focusing on improved development management and post-launch content strategies. He emphasized a future portfolio balancing the strengths of established single-player titles with the riskier, but potentially high-reward, live-service model.

Several PlayStation live-service games remain in development, including Bungie's *Marathon*, Guerrilla's *Horizon Online*, and Haven Studio's *Fairgame*.