Sony’s president, Hiroki Totoki, talked about the messy start of Concord and how they want to avoid such mistakes in the future.
In a chat about their recent earnings, Hiroki shared, “Currently, we are still in the process of learning,” through a translator (via VGC). He explained that trying new things is always a bit of a gamble, and they need to test and check games way earlier to catch any problems. “And basically–with regards to new IP–of course you don’t know the result until you actually try it. So for us, for our reflection, we probably need to have a lot of gates, including user testing or internal evaluation, and the timing of such gates. And then we need to bring them forward, and we should have done those gates much earlier than we did.”
Hiroki also mentioned that Sony will think carefully about when to release their games. This way, they don’t end up fighting for attention with other big games from their own or other companies. It’s kind of like not wanting all the birthday parties on the same day!
Interestingly, Concord came out just after Black Myth: Wukong, which did awesome on PS5 and PC. Plus, big names like Star Wars Outlaws and Madden NFL 25 were also hitting the scene around the same time. But then, out of nowhere, Helldivers 2 became a huge hit, teaching Sony some new tricks about what works.
Fans sometimes feel like there’s always something new to learn and explore.
Looking ahead, Sony is planning to release both single-player and live-service games. They aim to balance their strong points while also diving into more daring projects. Good news from their latest earnings update showed that their Game and Network Services division is thriving, with 3.8 million PS5 consoles shipped by the end of September.
