Det er let at stirre sig blind på den gigantiske fiasko der er Concord, og få et ret negativt billede af Sonys samlede live service-satsning, men det er faktisk bare toppen af isbjerget. Om det er Bend Studios God of War live service-spil, det pludseligt aflyste The Last of Us Online eller det utal af andre skrottede projekter, så har det været en gigantisk fiasko - indtil videre.
Det indrømmer Sony CFO Lin Tao i en ny Q&A, men lover samtidig også at de vil fortsætte og lære af deres fejl:
"Last year Concord [shut down], and this year Marathon was postponed, so somewhat negative news has been coming out. But if we look at the past five years, five years ago live service games were almost non-existent for PlayStation Studios. We [now] have Helldivers 2, MLB The Show and Gran Turismo 7, and Bungie's Destiny 2, so we have these four live services contributing to sales and profits in a stable manner. So in terms of the transformation, it's not entirely going smoothly, but from a longer-term perspective, if you look at the changes over five years you see that there's definitely been a change. Of course, we recognise that there are still many issues, so we should learn the lessons from mistakes and make sure that we introduce live service content where there's less waste and it's more smooth."
Hun pointerer at i seneste kvartal udgjorde live service-omsætning for omkring 40% af PlayStations samlede omsætning, men det er dog også i en periode hvor der er virkelig langt mellem større førstepartslanceringer, så et helt retvisende billede er det dog ikke.
Alt tyder altså på at Sony bliver ved ganske ufortrødent.