Sony confirms it’s delayed half of its 12 planned live service games

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has halved the number of live service games it plans to release over the next few years, it’s confirmed.

SIE had previously said it planned to have 12 live service titles in the market by its fiscal year ending in March 2026 – up from three during its last business year ended this March.

However, earlier this year PlayStation’s management team confirmed that it had partnered with Destiny studio Bungie for a “rigorous portfolio review” process. According to press reports, this has led to some projects being scaled back.

During an earnings call on Thursday, Sony president, COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki seemingly confirmed that this review had resulted in some games being pushed back due to quality concerns.

“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,” he said. “[Of] the 12 titles, six titles will be released by FY25 – that’s our current plan. [As for] the remaining six titles, we are still working on that.

“That’s the total number of live service and multiplayers titles [and] mid-to-long-term we want to [push] this kind of service and that’s the unchanged policy of the company. It’s not like we stick to certain titles, but game quality should be the most important [thing].”

Among the 12 titles in development are a The Last of Us online game, a Horizon online game and an original IP from PlayStation’s London Studio.

Speaking earlier this year, PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst described how Bungie had become involved in all its in-development live service games.

“The learnings from Bungie have been very substantial in many areas,” Hulst said. “Of course, when you’re developing live service titles, you [require] capabilities that you don’t have when you’re working on single-player, narrative-driven games.

“And these capabilities that we’ve set up inside PlayStation Studios have been helped and guided by Bungie. We also more deeply understand what success means in live services. Historically, our games always worked towards an end, and this is a large cultural shift… the launch of a game is just the beginning, and it comes with a whole set of different [key performance indicators].

“We also work with Bungie on a pretty rigorous portfolio review process that we apply to all 12 live service titles that we have in production, and these are just brief examples of some of the learnings that we have gained from working with Bungie.”