Games

Sony President Comments on Concord Failure

Published

2 months ago

November 8, 2024

Christoph Rediske

concord characters running toward camera below green sky

Key Takeaways

Table of Contents

Sony is still analyzing the failure of Concord.
The company believes the game didn’t have enough “gates” to ensure it was in line with player expectations.
Sony’s “siloed” organizational structure possibly contributed to Concord’s failure, according to the company’s president, Hiroki Totoki.

PlayStation is still in the process of analyzing the failure of Concord, according to Sony President Hiroki Totoki. The company official said as much in a recent Q&A session, which also saw him speculate on some of the reasons why Concord ended up the way it did.

The first and last game from Sony subsidiary Firewalk Studios hit the market on August 23. It was shut down just two weeks later, with Concord thus becoming what’s believed to be the costliest failure in Sony’s live-service efforts to date.

Former GTA Dev Comments on Concord Studio Shutdown

A former Rockstar Games dev, who worked on multiple GTA games, chimes in with their take on Sony shuttering the studio behind Concord.

Now that Concord is confirmed not to be coming back in any shape or form, Sony President and CFO Hiroki Totoki reflected on the short-lived game during a Q&A session held after the company’s latest earnings call. Among other things, the executive said that Sony remains “in the process of learning” what went wrong with Firewalk’s hero shooter. Totoki did offer some theories about this, like noting that any new IP carries an inherent risk and is far from a sure bet.

Concord Didn’t Have Enough ‘Gates,’ Sony President Says

The Sony boss also opined that Concord didn’t have enough “gates” in the form of “user testing” and other forms of evaluation. The timing of these checks was another potential problem that he identified in retrospect. “We should have done those gates much earlier than we did,” he explained. Instead, Sony was seemingly unaware that the game could be a major flop until the Concord open beta failed to generate any significant interest a month ahead of the hero shooter’s market debut.

Sony’s Organizational Structure Likely Did Concord No Favors

Totoki also acknowledged that the structure of Sony’s business might have contributed to the failure of Concord. Specifically, he described Sony as a “siloed organization,” suggesting that its individual departments are presently fairly isolated from one another and conceding that this might have caused a disconnect between them in Concord‘s case.

Although Concord ended up being one of the most high-profile failures in Sony’s history, it remains to be seen whether its fate will make the gaming giant rethink its overall live-service foray. After all, the only other live-service game that Sony published in 2024, Helldivers 2, ended up being a massive hit; it sold over 12 million copies in its first three months on the market, thus becoming the fastest PlayStation game to reach this figure. As of late 2024, Sony still has several live-service titles in the works, including Haven Studios’ Fairgames and Bungie’s Marathon. The latter is presently believed to be targeting a launch in the second half of 2025, whereas Fairgames is still without a tentative release window.

Assemble your crew of Freegunner space outlaws and team up online with friends for thrilling 5v5 PVP modes across the galaxy in Concord.

Concord is a new team-based first-person shooter for PS5® and PC*. Handpick your personal roster of Freegunners from the crew of the Northstar – a group of outlaws and adventurers working as guns-for-hire.

ASSEMBLE YOUR CREW
From powerful mystics to skilled gunslingers and helpful healers, each Freegunner brings their own unique skills, personality, and abilities that cater to a wide-range of playstyles.

Create your own custom squads of Freegunners with Crew Builder to bring an arsenal of different role types to the match or focus on your favourite characters to master their gameplay and unlock unique modifiers, cosmetics, background lore, and more – you decide when to play your characters and how you impact the match.

PLAY. PROGRESS. PERSONALIZE.
Earn and unlock a wide range of character customization items and learn more about the characters, worlds, and factions in the Concord Galaxy with the Galactic Guide.

You’ll also be able to progress toward and unlock Freegunner Variants—versions of each of the 16 Freegunners with added Combat Trait modifiers to their base abilities. As you learn and master the characters, Combat Traits empower you to tailor each character to your playstyle. 

Systems