[OPINION] How Sony’s Obsession With Live Services Burned Billions and Killed its Studios

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Sony descent into live-service madness is a textbook case of executives so far removed from the actual gamers that they’ve turned a golden goose of single-player masterpieces into a flaming dumpster fire of wasted billions, all while patting themselves on the back for “rational business decisions.”

Take the various social media posts that rightfully roast this idiocy: they call out how Spider-Man 1 clocked in at a sane $90 million budget, only for Spider-Man 2, barely five years later, to balloon to over $315 million total, with no justification beyond bloated scope creep and executive vanity projects.

And that’s before you factor in the crown jewel of failure, Concord, Sony’s $400 million, eight-year debacle that launched in August 2024 to peak at a pathetic 697 simultaneous players before being yanked offline after just two weeks, generating less revenue than a lemonade stand on a rainy day, possibly the biggest financial wipeout in media history.

CEOs like the departed Jim Ryan, who aggressively pivoted PlayStation toward live-service “games as a service” in a desperate chase for Fortnite-like recurring revenue, have completely lost touch with reality, treating gamers like ATMs who’ll endlessly grind for scraps instead of buying polished, complete experiences that actually respect their time.

Ryan’s regime acquired single-player powerhouses like Bluepoint (remake legends behind Demon’s Souls) and Bend Studio (Days Gone), only to shoehorn them into soul-crushing live-service experiments: Bluepoint’s multiplayer God of War got axed in January 2025, leading to the studio’s outright closure just yesterday.

Hiroki Totoki, who stepped in as interim CEO after Ryan bailed in 2024, and Hermen Hulst keep doubling down, admitting the strategy is “not entirely going smoothly” after canceling eight of the 12 live-service titles they hyped for 2025 (Last of Us multiplayer, Twisted Metal reboot), while 2025 became a live-service graveyard of flops and shutdowns.

Investors, those soulless vampires demanding infinite growth quarter after quarter, couldn’t care less about crafting timeless hits like God of War or The Last of Us; they just want microtransaction milking machines to juice endless profits, pressuring Sony to bet the farm on trendy slop despite market saturation from failures like Suicide Squad or Exoprimal.

Budgets have skyrocketed for zero reason where AAA titles now routinely hit $200-400 million because of rampant mismanagement, chasing graphical hyperbole with no payoff, outsourcing bloat, and executives greenlighting endless revisions without accountability. Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden warns that unless you’re Rockstar, don’t even dream of recouping a $200 million budget without 25 million sales, yet Sony keeps approving these monsters, leading to mass layoffs (900 axed in 2024 alone) while profits evaporate.

When these games flop, and they do, spectacularly, execs don’t own up; they blame gamers for not staying loyal fans and buying everything they ship, or for not spending hundreds on their microtransactions, as if loyal fans evaporating is our fault instead of their refusal to make affordable, replayable bangers.

Hulst shrugs off the 8/12 cancellation rate with “the number doesn’t really matter,” proving they’re allergic to learning: Concord’s corpse is still warm, yet they force more live-service garbage, shuttering studios and hiking PS5 prices to claw back losses from their hubris.

Sony had a money-printing empire of narrative-driven gold; now it’s a cautionary tale of boardroom buffoons gambling away billions on addictive boxes nobody wants, all while gaslighting us that we’re the problem. Wake up PlayStation, gamers aren’t the ones out of touch; your CEOs are, and they’re dragging the industry down with them.