“Live service gaming” can mean a lot of things. For some, it’s an example of where video games are heading, with constantly updating games that keeps players invested throughout its lifespan. Players spend money on items like skins or emotes, or maybe a monthly subscription fee, and becomes a constant source of revenue for developers. We’ve seen this model explode with games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Roblox, and Final Fantasy XIV.
With live service being the new popular trend that every video game developer wants to capitalize on, we’re seeing more companies try to find ways to get into it. In the case of PlayStation, it just made a $3.6 billion investment into it with Bungie. While obviously getting the Destiny IP under the PlayStation umbrella was a huge part of the purchase, it may also be using their new asset as a way to pump out more live service games.
“The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space,” Totoki said.
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“Through close collaboration between Bungie and PlayStation Studios we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 2026.”
Ten live service games by the end of March 2026 about 10 games in four years. That’s an absurd amount of video games for a pair of studios to put out in that short of a timespan. It’s possible that PlayStation Studios and Bungie have had a handful of games in the works and are now working together to release them soon, but the supposed turnaround time still feels unrealistic.
That said, this does provide some context on what Sony sees in Bungie. Destiny 2 is currently one of the most successful live service games out there. If there was any company to target with the intention of making more successful live service games, then Bungie was definitely going to be on the short list for that reason alone.