PS5 Exec Doesn’t Want To See Gaming’s Future Dominated By Live-Service Games: “Boring”

Although PlayStation is in the midst of a big push into live-service games, one executive with the company doesn’t want to see the games industry become too homogenous. Speaking to The Guardian, PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida explained that the talent of game developers is what drives the industry forward, but he did admit that seeing the best-selling games list dominated by live-service titles would be “boring” for him.

“The games industry will never cease to be a fun place. The industry keeps growing and growing, and I hope it keeps supporting and chasing creative ideas and people who try to work on new things. You don’t want to see the Top 10 games every year being almost the same, all games becoming service games,” Yoshida said. “That would be a bit boring, for me.”

Sony has an ambitious goal to launch 12 live-service games by 2025, and it recently acquired developer Firewalk Studios from its previous parent company, ProbablyMonsters Inc. Firewalk has worked on Call of Duty, Destiny, Apex Legends, Halo, and other titles since it was formed in 2018. Sony says that Firewalk will help it realize its live-service goals alongside other studios working on these projects, including Bungie and Haven Interactive Studios.

At the same time, Sony is still working on the prestige single-player games that helped define the PlayStation brand during the 2010s, essentially giving fans of PlayStation the option to have their cake and eat it as they’re given more choices. Sony always has several projects in development, and as Yoshida explained in the interview, the company cancels “so many games,” as it experiments with and then evaluates different concepts.

For the rest of 2023, PS5 has a big year ahead of it. Horizon Forbidden West’s massive Burning Shores expansion is now available, Final Fantasy XVI launches for PS5 on June 22, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is rumored to release in September.