Sony is doubling down on live-service games despite Concord's collapse and a $765M Bungie loss
Sony's only live-service success story was made by someone else. CEO Hideaki Nishino told Famitsu that Sony Interactive Entertainment will continue investing in live-service games, citing their potential to reach a global audience — this despite a string of expensive failures and a $765 million loss tied to its 2022 Bungie acquisition.
The track record
Former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan greenlit more than ten live-service projects around 2022. Almost none survived. Concord — a $200-400 million multiplayer shooter eight years in development — shut its servers two weeks after launch. Multiplayer offshoots of God of War, Spider-Man, The Last of Us, and Twisted Metal were all quietly cancelled. Bungie, purchased for $3.7 billion, posted that staggering $765M loss, ended support for Destiny 2, and shed most of its staff. The remaining team is now working on extraction shooter Marathon, which per Kotaku is generating little momentum. Fairgame$, announced by Haven Studios in 2023, lost its founder Jade Raymond and is drawing deeply negative feedback from playtesters.
Nishino's position, stated plainly in the Famitsu interview: live-service is "a relatively young format" that requires "systematic development," and Sony isn't walking away.
What this means for PS5 owners
According to a Tech4Gamers 2026 analysis, the confirmed 2026 PS5 slate leans heavily toward multiplayer and games-as-a-service titles. Only two single-player exclusives — Marvel's Wolverine and Saros — are confirmed so far. Sony's new platform policy draws a clear line: single-player games stay PlayStation-exclusive, while live-service titles launch simultaneously on PS5 and PC.
The one bright spot in Sony's live-service portfolio is Helldivers 2 — over 20 million copies sold and more than $700 million in revenue, per Notebookcheck. The catch: it was built by Arrowhead Game Studios, not a Sony first-party team. Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has publicly described Ryan's live-service pivot as a costly mistake that now requires a "readjustment."
The outlook
Sony's argument is that the format has long-term upside if done right. The evidence so far suggests that doing it right is genuinely hard — and that the one time it worked, Sony didn't do it. For PS5 owners who prefer story-driven exclusives, the 2026 lineup is a reason to pay close attention to what actually ships.
