I know that the running joke used to be that all Xbox had was Gears, Halo, and Forza but those games arguably had more invested in multiplayer that laid the groundwork for GAAS service down the line. With Factions, being cancelled is this a failure on Sony to fully develop their multiplayer pedigree. They had SOCOM, Resistance, MAG, and Kill Zone but they never were able to stick with something that worked and instead rode the coattails of COD. Is it too late or do they need to simply honker down and make it work some how?
Ultimately comes down to the fact that Sony's MP games came at a time where their online network hadn't really matured to the level of Xbox, so it was never a priority to keep the funding going to those games.
Sony made a great bet on SP experiences that revitalized the PS3 and brought the PS4 to historic heights, but those teams that had focused on MP never really made the transition.
It might have been shortsighted to close down Zipper, but the quality of their games was seriously lacking and I'm sure the studio wasn't profitable.
I think similar to Xbox, Sony has probably realized that they need to build that pedigree over time and earn it. 12 Live Services games with no clear strategy seemed a bit far-fetched to everyone when we first heard it. My hope was that there was enough variety in that to deliver on some of these, but I've said it to a lot of people I have zero interest in online games let alone live service games.
I still think we need to look at the breakdown of the 12 Sony was probably referring to, which seemingly never included GT7.
There is probably also an element of Sony trying to release games that are in line with their standards that is also causing issues. Sometimes these live service games evolve over time, and there should be live betas to get community feedback, that can help with the direction of the game.
My guess is TLOU Online has has closed betas within the studio, but limited feedback from gamers.