The PlayStation brand is certainly the leader in console game retail worldwide, powered by a large install base and first party exclusive software. While the place atop has currently been sizable, even with the sales of the Nintendo Switch remaining strong over the years, the landscape of video games, access, and distribution are changing. Even PlayStation seems to know this.

Sony's current heavy hitters, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, and Insomniac are working on online multiplayer content...

Sony CEO Jim Ryan, who will be retiring next Spring, made a strong pivot in recent years to branch Sony into live service business models for their games. Not long after the company's $3.6 billion dollar acquisition of Bungie, the makers of Destiny, Ryan announced that up to 10 live service games will be launching on PlayStation platforms over the next four years.

According to Forbes, this shift of focusing on live service left insiders very concerned about the lack of focus in this direction. Sony's current heavy hitters, Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and Guerrilla are working on online multiplayer content, some of it seeing delays and complications to The Last of Us and Horizon's standalone project. Destruction All-Stars, a PS5 exclusive multiplayer vehicular combat game, sees a fairly low player count. 

With the Jim Ryan tenure coming to an end, a more feasible vision for what Sony intends to do for the software of the PlayStation 5 should come to fruition. Their single-player games are the company's bread and butter, even if there will be long droughts in between, on top of their higher budget. It felt like Sony was very late to the game in a landscape that's changing rapidly.  

SOURCE: Forbes