Sony Says It Should Have Done User Testing and Internal Evaluation Earlier on Concord

ign.com:

Sony has reflected on the disastrous launch of PlayStation 5 game Concord, saying it’s still learning when it comes to live service games.

Concord, a live service hero shooter from Sony-owned Firewalk Studios, has gone down as one of the biggest flops in PlayStation history. Amid disastrously low player numbers, Sony hauled Concord offline just two weeks after launch. It eventually shuttered Firewalk and confirmed Concord wouldn’t return.

It has proved a costly failure for Sony. Concord's initial development deal was around $200 million according to a report by Kotaku, which cited two sources familiar with the agreement. They said the $200 million was not enough to fund Concord's entire development, nor did it include the purchase of the Concord IP rights or Firewalk Studios itself. Kotaku's number aligns with an earlier report saying that ProbablyMonsters — Firewalk's original parent company — raised $200 million in 2021.

It all points to Concord being seen as an ambitious project that was expected to attract a large audience. Instead it launched to tepid reviews and low interest, prompting PlayStation to pull the plug within days of release. One estimate suggested it only sold around 25,000 copies.

Midia Research analyst Rhys Elliott told IGN shortly before Concord was shut down: “Pivoting to live services is high-risk, high-reward venture, and the risk is heightening to levels that might not be worth it for many AAA console/PC publishers that aren’t already active in the space."

In a recent financial call, Sony president, COO and CFO Hiroki Totoki said the company has learned lessons from both the record-breaking launch of Helldivers 2 earlier this year and Concord’s failure. On Concord specifically, Totoki said Sony should have run its development gates such as user testing or internal evaluation “much earlier than we did.”

“Currently we are still in the process of learning,” Totoki said. “Basically, with regards to new IP, of course you don’t know the result until