Sony's PS5, PC Live Service Strategy Won't Work If It's All Samey Shooters | Push Square

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We’ve been one of the few publications defending Sony’s live service strategy because we don’t think the idea is inherently bad. A lot of fans treat the booming Games as a Service segment as a genre, but it’s important to underline that it’s a business model instead. In fact, there’s enormous variety in the sector – no one would sanely say Rocket League is the same as Fortnite, for example – and it’s something PS Studios boss Hermen Hulst has alluded to himself.

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PlayStation falls at the first hurdle

But during last night’s PS Showcase, the platform holder didn’t help itself – in fact, it revealed two titles that fit the very definition of what sceptics feared its strategy would be all about. Aside from being tone-deaf, Fairgame$ looked like the blandest squad-based shooter this side of XDefiant and Hyenas – in fact, so generic did it appear, that you could quite literally have closed its trailer with the title card of either of those aforementioned titles and we wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.

Concord was arguably even more egregious, as while the vibes of Haven’s studio made us want to gag, we had to await a press release to understand what Firewalk’s debut is actually all about. TL;DR: it’s a sci-fi PVP shooter with a strong social focus, because of course it is. While we’ll maintain an open mind until more information is shared, neither project really struck us as particularly innovative or original – a huge issue in an increasingly competitive environment.

Sony has said that it’s making 12 live service games for PS5 and PC, and it’ll almost certainly know they won’t all survive. This is quite literally a case of the platform holder throwing as much sh*t at the wall as it possibly can, knowing that it