Sony CFO admits live service shift is 'not entirely going smoothly' in the wake of Marathon and Concord, takes a big hit of cope, says it's not all bad because Helldivers 2 and Destiny 2 exist

(Image credit: Firewalk Studios)

Live service games are a massive gamble. We all know it. I understand this, you understand this, Sony should understand this but isn't—ah, damnit.

In a recent Q&A session, Sony's CFO Lin Tao (via VGC) talks a lot about the studio's foibles such as with the public-opinion quagmire that is Marathon and the instant trainwreck of Concord. I should note that this was via an interpreter, so there'll be a smidge lost in translation, but it's all very telling how little Sony's dissuaded from its current path.

"Somewhat negative news has been coming out," Tao said of Marathon and Concord, "But if we look at the past five years, five years ago live service games were almost non-existent for PlayStation Studios. We [now] have Helldivers 2, MLB The Show and Gran Turismo 7, and Bungie's Destiny 2, so we have these four live services contributing to sales and profits in a stable manner."

I'd like to point out that Destiny 2 came out in 2017, which is actually seven years ago, but I suppose to Tao's credit not every Sony-piloted live service game has been a complete failure. And, sure, Destiny 2's latest expansion has put it on fragile ground but let's just—let's just sweep that under the rug, real quick. We don't need to look at that.

She then went on to state that "for Q1 the live service ratio was about 40%, for the full year it's a little less, probably between 20-30%," which, in her mind, means that "in terms of the transformation, it's not entirely going smoothly, but from a longer-term perspective, if you look at the changes over five years you see that there's definitely been a change."

I mean, sure, there's been a change—from a company who used to put out games you could play for more than a month to one where that's no longer a sure thing. But hey, Tao and Sony are both reflecting. They're growing and doing some self-exploration, and they've decided that they need to simply stop making bad live service games and start making good live service games.

"Of course, we recognise that there are still many issues, so we should learn the lessons from mistakes and make sure that we introduce live service content where there's less waste and it's more smooth." Genius! If only someone had thought of that sooner!

Look, I know we're all past the point of expecting videogame executives to say things of substance in shareholder meetings and Q&A sessions, but it still does boggle me how masterfully Tao is able to gesture vaguely in the direction of truth without saying anything about it. I'm looping back around to being just plain impressed.

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Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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