One Year After Concord, What Has Sony Learned From The PS5 Flop?

Sony evaluated the Concord live-service failure that cost over $200 million and has changed development processes to avoid similar outcomes. PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst emphasized earlier, cheaper failure detection, increased information sharing between studios and executives, and much more rigorous and frequent testing. Hulst did not abandon online multiplayer ambitions but deprioritized specific numeric targets and stressed a focus on diverse player experiences and communities. FairGame$ lost its studio head after a poor internal review. Ubisoft's CEO has been summoned to court as victims who testified against former senior members, including ex-chief creative officer Serge Hascoët, pursue a fresh lawsuit. Hollow Knight is seeing renewed purchases as players rush to play ahead of Silksong's launch.

How did Sony slow-walk its way into a live service debacle that cost it over $200 million? A year after Concord launched, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst explained what the company is doing to avoid releasing another expensive game that no one wants to play. "I don't want teams to always play it safe, but I would like for us, when we fail, to fail early and cheaply," he told the Financial Times.

A year after Concord launched, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst explained what the company is doing to avoid releasing another expensive game that no one wants to play. He promised more info sharing between studios and executives and said, "We have since put in place much more rigorous and more frequent testing in very many different ways. The advantage of every failure is that people now understand how necessary that [testing] is."

What about Sony's live-service plans moving forward? Hulst didn't say the company is backing off its online multiplayer push, but he did hand-wave away prior commitments to launch nearly a dozen live-service projects by 2026. "The number is not so important," he said. "What is important to me is having a diverse set of player experiences and a set of communities." FairGame$, expected to be the next multiplayer game in Sony's pipeline, recently lost its studio head after a bad internal review.

Read at Kotaku