The chief financial officer from Sony admits the company’s shift toward live service games has hit some bumps, but says they’re committed to learning from their mistakes and moving forward. During a recent Q&A session after Sony shared its latest financial results, CFO Lin Tao was asked about PlayStation’s live service strategy and the problems they’ve faced with these types of games.

Tao acknowledged that Sony has had some public failures recently. The company shut down Concord last year after poor performance, and this year they delayed Marathon, another highly anticipated live service game. These setbacks have created negative headlines for Sony’s gaming division.

However, Tao pointed out that Sony has made real progress over the past five years. “Five years ago, live service games were almost non-existent for PlayStation Studios,” she explained through an interpreter. Now the company has several successful live service titles bringing in steady money: Helldivers 2, MLB The Show, Gran Turismo 7, and Destiny 2 from their Bungie studio.

The numbers back up her point. Live service games made up about 40% of Sony’s first-party game revenue in the most recent quarter, and between 20-30% for the full year.

“So in terms of the transformation, it’s not entirely going smoothly, but from a longer-term perspective, if you look at the changes over five years you see that there’s definitely been a change,” Tao said.

Sony’s live service struggles go beyond just Concord and Marathon. Earlier this year, reports revealed that the company had cancelled live service projects at Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games. The Bluepoint project was reportedly going to be a live service version of God of War. Another game, Fairgame$ from Haven Studios, has been pushed back to 2026.