Sony Interactive Entertainment has said that PlayStation single-player games aren’t going anywhere but the company will also heavily invest in live service experiences going forward because “that’s incredibly exciting.” This statement came from Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst during an interview with Games Industry, where the executive talked about his company’s recent acquisition: Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios.
PlayStation single-player games are here to stay
“Obviously we will always carry on making these single-player narrative-based games such as Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us, and Horizon Forbidden West,” Hulst said. “But you’ve spotted correctly that we have invested in live service games, because that’s incredibly exciting for us. It allows us to build larger worlds, it allows us to create really meaningful social connections between players.”
Haven Studios is currently making a PlayStation 5-exclusive live service game. Its acquisition is the latest in a string of purchases Sony has made to bolster its in-house multiplayer development capabilities, in which it evidently lags behind compared to arch-rival Microsoft. “Yes we are setting up capabilities internally,” Hulst continued. “It is so exciting for us to welcome to the family a group of people who have a lot of experience with live-service games. To have those central capabilities that we’re setting up interact with people who have been doing it for a long time… that notion that demanding customers create great capabilities, that usually holds true in game development.”
Opinion: Sony needs to fix its network infrastructure before making more live service games
Zarmena writes… If today and the past week are any indication, Sony still has a ways to go before it’s capable of handling an influx of live service games. Gran Turismo 7 requires internet to play, and today is the second time it’s been rendered unplayable within a week, thanks to PS5’s latest system software update breaking PSN. The PS Store is riddled with bugs, PSN is still wonky, and Sony just can’t seem to figure this out. Good thing, then, that PlayStation single-player games aren’t going anywhere…
In other news, Gran Turismo 7 players are now using credit-farming scripts to fight the unpopular credit nerf, and Returnal: Ascension is now live.
[Source: Games Industry]
