Sony’s is massively increasing the amount of money they spend on R&D budget for video games, but most of it is going on live service games.
Since it’s now looking very likely that Microsoft will be able to buy Activision Blizzard, Sony’s attention is going to have to shift from trying to block the buyout to countering it their own initiatives.
For a while now it’s been obvious that they’re planning a change of direction, away from single-player narrative games and towards live service titles – even though most fans seem to be highly sceptical of the idea.
Sony isn’t doing things by half though, with a new report revealing that they’re planning to spend 300 billion yen (£1.66 billion) on video game research & development this year, which is 40% of Sony Group’s entire R&D budget and more than double what they were spending in 2020.
Of that 300 billion yen, 55% of the budget (£912 million) will go will go on live service games this year, rising to 60% by March 2026.