Sony reaffirms commitment to live service games despite Concord failure and $765 million Bungie loss

PlayStation president Hideaki Nishino has restated Sony's belief in live service games, doubling down on the strategy even as the company absorbs significant losses from its most high-profile bets in the space.

The details:

• Speaking in a Famitsu interview, Nishino said: "We believe that live service games are content that attracts users on a global level, so we want to continue to revitalize the market through both first-party and third-party content." He also noted that "with live service games, it's important to continuously provide something."
• The comments come in the wake of a turbulent period for Sony's live service ambitions. Concord was pulled from sale within two weeks of launch before developer Firewalk Studios was closed, while Bungie's Marathon struggled to find an audience and Sony subsequently reported a $765 million impairment loss on its $3.6 billion Bungie acquisition. 292 Bungie staff were cut last week.
• Sony's approach going forward is to treat single-player games as first-party exclusives while positioning PS5 and PC as the core platforms for live service releases - a shift from its previous strategy of pursuing console exclusivity more broadly.
• Nishino also hinted at future hardware ambitions, noting that "people's lifestyles change" and that Sony would develop "something interesting by utilising technologies that can be used in various forms and locations." While stopping short of confirming anything, the comments have been widely read as pointing toward a handheld or hybrid PS6 device. Nishino was clear that any such device would run games natively rather than rely purely on cloud.
• As a separate data point, Nishino revealed that PlayStation Portal cloud streaming usage in January 2026 was 1.5 times higher than in December 2025, citing it as evidence of growing demand for flexible play.