Sony seems to believe that it should still engage in service-oriented development.

Herman Hulster, CEO of PlayStation Studios Business Group, finally revealed his views on the "Star Story" project.

As an executive who manages the development team of PlayStation, Hulster plays a key role in the development decisions of studio projects.There is no need to repeat the story about "Star Story", but Hulster is the core character - previously content creator Colin Moriarty revealed that it was Hulster who decided to continue to inject funds into the project until it was released.It is rumored that he once regarded the game as the "future of PlayStation" and believed that it was a Star Wars-level IP that could produce cross-media works.

Today, Hulster attended the investor fireside conversation (i.e., Q&A session) with PlayStation President and CEO Hideaki Nishino and Lynn Hazard, Senior Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development.In response to questions about Star Twinkle and Marathon, Hulster frankly shared his views:

"We firmly believe that service-oriented games are a huge opportunity, but this opportunity is accompanied by unique challenges. We talked about the initial success of "Jedi 2" and also faced challenges in the release of "Star Story". In fact, this game has put a lot of effort into it and the team has made great efforts.

But in the end, it entered the extremely competitive market segment.I think its differentiation is insufficient and fails to resonate with the players.Therefore, we have reviewed the process based on this and analyzed in depth why the project did not meet expectations.

To ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated – as I said before – we have introduced a stricter verification process that continuously tests assumptions at the creative, commercial and development levels.This plan will ensure that we invest in the right opportunities at the right time while maintaining a more predictable timeline.”

Hulster's statement did not confirm the rumor details about "Star Wars" and his personal participation - he neither admitted "spending $400 million in the project" nor "consider it as Sony's Star Wars."But interestingly, Hideaki Nishino and Hazard present did not refute his statement.

Obviously, PlayStation overall still believes that the "Star Ming Special Attack" project "has done a lot of outstanding work."Hulster and PlayStation did not regard service-based games as a mistake and believed in the future success in this field.But unfortunately, this also means they are still willing to take risks, which could lead to more layoffs and studio closures in the future.Despite what it sounds a bit ironic, we hope they can find a breakout path for service-oriented games at least to some extent.