The troubled launch of Concord was the subject of a recent interview with Sony president Hiroki Totoki, who discussed the company's plans to prevent such issues in future game releases. Part of Sony's strategy involves ensuring that a game undergoes a more thorough period of testing and evaluation before its release.
"Currently, we are still in the process of learning," Hiroki said through an interpreter (via VGC) during a Q&A session following its latest financial earnings call. "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 added that Sony will also consider the timing of game launches to avoid potential sales cannibalization between releases from its first-party studios and third-party partners. It's noteworthy that Concord launched just three days after Black Myth: Wukong, a game that performed exceptionally well on PS5 and PC, and other high-profile releases around Concord included Star Wars Outlaws and Madden NFL 25. On the other end of the live-service spectrum, Helldivers 2 was a surprise hit on PS5 and PC, and Sony acknowledged that there were lessons to be learned from both games moving forward.
The company also plans to release a mix of single-player and live-service games in the future, allowing it to focus on its strengths while pursuing riskier projects. Other highlights from the financial earnings call were largely positive, as Sony reported that sales for its Game and Network Services division were up and 3.8 million PS5 consoles were shipped during this quarter, which ended on September 30.
Source link: https://www.gamespot.com
