PlayStation Fans Should Brace For More Live Service Games Despite Concord's Failure

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Despite recent failures, PlayStation wants fans to know that it has no intention of shifting away from the live-service model. Sony's controversial decision to double-down on games-as-a-service has been a mixed bag as it's managed to strike gold with titles like while also delivering some instantaneous flops like the ill-fated. Those dips haven't affected the company's business plan though as it intends to stick with its current strategy and views its less successful endeavors as opportunities to improve.

Per GamesRadar+, Sony executive Hiroki Totoki recently explained to investors, through a translator, that the company is "" about the live-service model, noting that launching new IP is always successful and likely required more pre-launch preparation:

So, probably, we need to have a lot of gates, including user testing and internal evaluation, and the timing of such gates, we need to bring them forward. We should have done those gates much earlier than we did [for Concord]. And also, we have a siloed organization, so going beyond the boundaries of that organization in terms of development and also sales—I think that could have been much smoother.

Totoki goes on to explain that more testing should have been conducted to ensure that would resonate with players. With more pre-launch evaluations, there's a chance the hero-shooter would have fared better but even with those measures, that seems doubtful.

Despite Totoki's claims that more quality «gates» would have improved 's chances for success, the game was already fighting an uphill battle after its early gameplay trailers. Firewalk Studios was attempting to break into the hero-shooter genre, which is already oversaturated, with a premium title that lacked many features seen in its free-to-play competitors. Regardless of the title's overall polish, the actual gameplay felt underbaked and significantly less enjoyable than something like.

was also widely criticized for the design of its core cast of characters with