Sony, who announced plans to create twelve new live service games by the end of its FY 2025, has now delayed half of them, according to the company's latest earnings call.
Sony's ambitious plans seem to be somewhat halted, as the company has delayed half of them. On an earnings call, Sony's Hiroki Totoki, the company's president, COO, and CFO stated that six of the twelve live service games in development have been pushed back thanks to quality concerns. This was after the company worked with Bungie, which Sony acquired in early 2022, to help evaluate thanks to a "rigorous portfolio review process." We know about Bungie's Marathon seeing a delay, while the multiplayer game set in the universe of The Last Of Us also appears to be another game affected by this delay.
Additionally, the status of NCSoft's live service game set in Guerilla Games' Horizon universe is unknown.
"We are reviewing this... we are trying as much as possible to ensure [these games] are enjoyed and liked by gamers for a long time," Totoki said in the earnings call via Video Games Chronicle.
This doesn't mean the other six titles are canceled, as VGC also states that Totoki stating that they're still "working on that." However, Sony's plan is to move ahead with the six that should still be released by fiscal year 2025.
According to the VGC report, Totoki also talked about a "culture shift" in how it measures success in a live service game, acknowledging that while its games have "always worked towards an end," with a live service, the "launch of a game is just the beginning."
