PlayStation investing more in live-service than single-player... uh oh

There’s no doubt that Sony Interactive Entertainment’s greatest strength lies in its incredible single-player story-focused games. I mean, seriously, think of the best PlayStation games that have released over the years, and the vast majority of them fall into this exact category.

From Marvel’s Spider-Man (and it’s exciting sequel) to The Last of Us, God of War and Horizon series, there are countless examples of Sony delivering what the players want, and it working exceptionally well. Up to this point, it’s seemed like the company knew this and planned on sticking to it - last year, PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst reassured fans that PlayStation will never abandon single player narrative-driven titles. However, some recent investment stats seem to imply otherwise.

Take a look at the brand new gameplay reveal for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 below.

As reported by PlayStation LifeStyle, newly released financial results show that this year, Sony is planning on investing 55% of its PS5 budget into live-service games and only 45% into single-player titles. What’s more, it’s expected that by 2025, that disparity will be even bigger, with 60% of investment going towards live-service and only 40% for single-player games.

To put that into perspective, back in 2019, Sony invested 88% of its budget into single-player games and only 12% into live-service. 2019 was very much in the midst of a golden era for PlayStation, with God of War (2018) releasing the year before (obviously) and The Last of Us Part II in development and set to release in 2020.

With that in mind, there’s no doubt that fans might be feeling a bit nervous about PlayStation’s future. According to The Verge’s Tom Warren, Hulst confirmed that 12 live-service games are currently in production for Sony, so we’re definitely going to be seeing plenty of announcements for those over the years.