PlayStation isn’t the same as it used to be, and that’s both good and bad.
Long ago, PlayStation was known for its RPGs and fun characters, but now it’s all about big, cinematic games with complicated heroes. Even though both styles were hits, PlayStation is shifting gears again, this time towards live-service games. It’s a super competitive area, and success isn’t guaranteed, but they’ve just made a move that might help.
In 2022, Sony laid out its plans for live-service games, telling investors they wanted to launch over 10 live-service games by March 2026. Hiroku Totoki, a top Sony executive, said this was part of their plan to expand into live-game services, inspired by the success of companies like Epic and Bungie, which Sony was buying.
But things haven’t gone smoothly. Some employees weren’t happy with the shift to live-service games, and David Jaffe, the guy behind Twisted Metal and God of War, said this was partly why Connie Booth, a long-time PlayStation developer, was fired. Her exit marked the end of her 30-year career at Sony, where she helped create iconic games like Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted.
Then, a month later, Totoki told investors that only half of the promised live-service games would be ready by Spring 2026. On top of that, two big projects, The Last of Us multiplayer game and a new Twisted Metal game, got scrapped. Naughty Dog, the team behind The Last of Us, explained:
“To release and support The Last of Us Online we’d have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post-launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games. So, we had two paths in front of us: Become a solely live-service-games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s heritage.”
In February 2024, Sony announced layoffs affecting 900 employees, shutting down its VR-focused London studio, and impacting other studios like Firesprite and Guerrilla. Bungie, another Sony-owned studio, also laid off 17% of its staff. Despite all this, Totoki insisted Sony would keep pushing for live-service games.
In that same meeting, Sony admitted it wouldn’t meet its goal of selling 25 million PS5s in the current financial year, revising the number to 21 million and losing $10 billion in market value. But they had one live-service game, Concord, almost ready to launch.
When Concord launched in August 2024, it didn’t do well, peaking at just 697 players on Steam. It ranked low on the PlayStation Store too. Sony soon pulled the game and shut down its servers. It might come back someday, but it wasn’t the hit Sony hoped for.
Sony recently announced the PS5 Pro, but with a $700 price tag (plus an $80 disc drive), and no major tech upgrades, the news wasn’t well-received.
However, I think Sony has an opportunity to course correct.
On September 6, PlayStation released Astro Bot, a delightful platformer that received rave reviews. The game celebrates PlayStation’s history, featuring bots that look like famous characters from various games, all while using a PS5 controller. But calling it just a nostalgia trip doesn’t do it justice.
As GameSpot’s Mark Delaney said, Astro Bot is “a platformer whose incredible ambition is matched by its brilliant execution.” It’s fun, full of exciting mechanics, and offers beautiful worlds to explore. It’s a game that can compete with Super Mario Odyssey and beyond that, it’s fun. Pure, joyous fun.
Sony’s exclusive titles are known for their deep stories and complex characters, but in all that, they’ve forgotten about simple fun. They forgot about different types of players and what they want to see. And they forgot about the series that have disappeared over time.
Though folks online love to call me a Sony Pony anytime I criticize Xbox–here’s hoping this piece clears that up a bit!–the only time I truly felt like a Sony fangirl was when I was a child. I remember the transition from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation–it absolutely blew my mind. I remember the variety of games my family obtained over the course of a few years: Tomb Raider, Spider-Man, Time Crisis, Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Silent Hill, Tekken, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, and a small mountain of Final Fantasy games, my family’s favorite. When the Xbox launched in 2001, I saw zero reason I would ever need it. I already had my portal to every world I could ever want to visit.
Of course, I’d eventually find a lot of value in Xbox and return to Nintendo, and these days, I don’t feel a closeness to PlayStation anymore. I’m sure this is partially due to my age and how the years inevitably come with a loss of childlike whimsy, but I know there are other factors, too. I’m not jaded, I still love games, and I could easily list dozens that have come out even in the last few years that I think are phenomenal. But to me, PlayStation just doesn’t quite feel special anymore. But Astro Bot does. And it also reminds me of how it used to feel.
Astro Bot feels like a chance to reignite the brand’s charm and perhaps even alter what live-service means for PlayStation, if that’s the path it intends to walk down. Whereas it seems like Sony is sticking to a very particular type of live-service game–one that is oversaturated and that it can’t seem to quite find an audience for, as Concord’s lack of success would indicate–the company has already revealed a plan to add more characters and levels to Astro Bot, and it could easily add more. It’d certainly make sense; it’s a game that feels simple to expand upon and has a foundation sturdy enough to cradle that expansion. Why continue to toil over creating a fun live-service title that sticks when you have a game that is proven to be fun and whose structure lends itself to being expanded?”
Sure, this doesn’t fit the bill when it comes to satisfying PlayStation’s desire to create a Forever Game–one that incentivizes players to log in daily, participate in seasonal content, and, to put it plainly, fork over cash on things like battle passes, skins, and loot boxes. But why is this well-established (and increasingly criticized) model the only way forward? Players have begun to see the vast majority of them for what they are: a somewhat predatory way to continuously rake in money. Games, and the amount of money companies are willing to spend making them, are growing monstrous in size yet it feels as if developers are forced to work in the confines of a narrow, short-sighted scope. It’s easy to see where this leads, and it’s not a place I want to see the industry go.
Yet at my most cynical and business-minded, Astro Bot still feels like a revenue booster, as it is a fantastic marketing opportunity for the company. Much like how Super Smash Bros. is said to have contributed to Fire Emblem’s success in the West, Sony now has a great avenue to introduce new characters, showcase indies, reignite interest in previous titles, and gauge what audiences are responding to or demand more of. When I played through Astro Bot, there were certain characters I didn’t know and was compelled to learn more about, as well as others that I had simply forgotten about but was delighted to see again. It made me want to buy and install games I hadn’t thought about in years. And it goes beyond the generation who grew up with these characters; my two-year-old son was fascinated by Spyro, which led to me redownloading the Reignited Trilogy and spending an hour introducing him to the feisty little dragon. This is the power that game currently wields, and it’s not a small one.
But beyond that, Astro Bot also proves that Sony can still do different types of games exceptionally well. It proves that Sony is still innovative, and its games still fun. Before Astro Bot, I couldn’t tell you the last time a PlayStation platformer truly gave a Nintendo platformer a run for its money, but here we are. I wish Sony knew it doesn’t necessarily need to pursue live-service. In fact, I’d argue it shouldn’t. There are other paths to success–paths that invest in studios’ unique visions, foster creativity, and delight players.
I can’t claim to know if the live-service bubble has truly burst or if the market is grossly oversaturated to the point where no room remains, but I do know that myself and many others are certainly fatigued by it all. The money-grabbing is as transparent as the stagnation, and something needs to change. Here’s hoping that Sony can sense that too.
