Sony plans to boost its research and development (R&D) spending for PlayStation and will focus that money on live service games and mixed reality titles that blend both the physical and digital worlds, reports Nikkei Asia.
The company is pouring 300 billion yen (about $2.8 billion CAD) into its R&D for its game segment for the fiscal year that ends in March 2024. This is about 40 percent of its total R&D spending and more money than it spends on electronics and semiconductors research.
Last year the company spent 271.1 billion yen on game R&D, more than double what it spent in 2020. Sony will spend 760 billion yen on company-wide R&D this fiscal year.
Previously, Sony has relied on big titles like God of War and Spider-Man, but switching to live service games will amp up content like Overwatch 2 and League of Legends. The company will spend about 55 percent of PS5 game development on live service games by March 2024 and 60 percent by the end of March 2026.
It makes sense that Sony is ramping up this development area, considering Microsoft’s potential acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The European Union and U.S. courts recently approved the case, but the deal still has to be approved by the United Kingdom. Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard would lead it to own many live service titles like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Overwatch 2 and several more.
Sony is further ahead in the metaverse category with its PS VR2. However, to compete with Apple’s Vision Pro and to further progress with the PS VR2, Sony will combine the resources of nine game studios, including Epic Games and its Unreal Engine.
The increased investment shows how important video games are for Sony’s portfolio, considering the segment makes up a lot of the company’s earnings. It’s important to remember Sony’s portfolio includes cameras, movies, TVs, phones and more. It also shows the ongoing shift in the gaming industry towards live-service games from single-player narrative Titles.
That’s not to say that Sony isn’t still working on big single-player titles, however. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches in October, and Cory Barlog is hiding away somewhere, working on the next instalment of God of War.
Source: Nikkei Asia Via: Engadget
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