July 14 (Portaltic/EP) –
sony is considering focusing the game development for playstation in live service titlesincluding 12 new for March 2026, At the same time, it intends to increase research for the development of games designed for Extended Reality (RE) and its use with the PlayStation VR2 viewer.
In this way, the Japanese company plans to change its strategy and, instead of focusing to a greater extent in the hardware development like he’s been doing for the past few years, bet on the development of video games in which you introduce new content -such as maps, characters or weapons- so that users continue playing.
In recent years, the manufacturer has relied mainly on the sales of its consoles. However, the PlayStation division plans to invest 300 billion yen (around 1,929 euros to change) for research and development of video games during the fiscal year ending March 2024, as recently confirmed Nikki Asia.
This medium points out that, with this change in strategy, the company intends to be more competitive against its main competitors, among which Microsoft stands out, with whom it has recently been in dispute over the purchase of purchase of Activison Blizzard and that it has finally had the green light for its acquisition.
In this sense, the Japanese company has detailed that increasing investment in video game development will allow games related to Extended Reality to be perfected, in addition to its live development video games.
The planned investment represents the 40 percent of company-wide R&D spending which, furthermore, is consolidated as double what the company invested in 2020 for the same sector of the company, according to statements by the Sony Group Chairman Hiroki Totoki collected by said means.
In this sense, Sony has indicated that, firstly, it plans to allocate the 55 percent of the budget in the development of these types of games for PS5 in the fiscal year ending in March of 2024. After that, the company plans allocate 60 percent of the budget in this same sector for the fiscal year ending in March 2026.
With this investment, Sony expects to have developed a total of 12 new live game titles for 2026. In addition, thanks to this, the company also Forecasts Live Service Gaming Market to Reach $19 Billion in that same year 2026, surpassing for the first time what was achieved with the ‘hardware’ market thanks to the PlayStation console.
THE METAVERSE
Following this line, Sony also intends to continue advancing in the Extended Reality Video Game Development With The Metaverse, that combine augmented reality with virtual reality and mixed reality. This goal is furthered by the increase in technology available in this sector, such as Apple’s new headset, Vision Pro, and its latest headset, PSVR2.
To do this, the company intends to combine the foreign study resources you have invested in in the past two years to contribute to the development of extended reality. One of these companies is Epic Gamesengine developer Unreal Engine.
With all this, as Hiroki Totoki has detailed, Sony will continue “performing strategic investments in the future, prioritizing intellectual property”.
