The PS5 will get ten new live service games by March 2026, according to Sony's latest earnings report.
The company revealed its plans in this morning's earnings call, confirming that its recent acquisition of Destiny 2 developer Bungie will help its other studios deliver on its impressive multiplayer goals. CFO Hiroki Totoki said that PlayStation studios "will learn from Bungie," and that Sony's "strong wish" is that Bungie is "willing to work closely with us."
While ten live service games in just four years is an impressive goal, there's no further word on what those titles might be. It's somewhat likely that one of them is Bungie's new IP - which has been described as a multiplayer action game - particularly given the long-term multiplayer track record that the studio has established with Destiny.
The only other relatively safe guess is The Last of Us 2 multiplayer. Developer Naughty Dog is already known to have multiple games in development, and as of September 2021, the sequel's take on Factions was confirmed to still be in development, with recent job listings suggesting that a long-awaited multiplayer mode could be free-to-play.
Beyond those two projects, it's anyone's guess as to what Sony is aiming for. Given the 2026 timeline, however, it's likely that the majority of these titles will be focused on the PS5 rather than the PS4. And if you're a fan of Sony's single-player offerings, don't worry - as VentureBeat reporter Jeff Grubb points out on Twitter, Sony "wants live-service games to help pay for all the other games that make PlayStation PlayStation. The budget for these projects [was] never going to go into another narrative game, the studios that are good at those are busy and tapped out."
While Sony has big plans for the PS5's slate of games, the console itself is still proving elusive. Elsewhere in this morning's call, the company confirmed that it had been forced to adjust its PS5 production forecasts down by more than three million units for the 2023 financial year due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage.
For a more concrete taste of what to expect, here's our list of upcoming PS5 games.
