Sony’s live service PlayStation strategy has been anything but smooth. While there have been successes, such as Helldivers 2, their failures have grabbed the headlines.
The scrapping of The Last of Us Online and the cancellation of Concord, abandoning the game only two weeks after its disastrous launch, are just some of the recent consoles recent mishaps.
This doesn’t mean that PlayStation has had a lack of hits recently, however, with Astro Bot and Death Stranding 2 each drawing high critical praise and finding commercial success. The PlayStation CEO, Herman Hulst, seems aware of this dynamic, however, and recently laid out his plan for how he wants the brand to manage development of new games going forward.
Learning From Failures
Herman Hulst spoke to the Financial Times, and acknowledged the failure of Concord, saying that he would prefer these issues to be caught earlier through more extensive oversight, in order to minimise costs.
He 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 [oversight] is.”
With Concord allegedly costing the company $250 million and leading to the closure of Firewalk Studio, these mistakes aren’t something that can be afforded very often.
What Does This Mean for Games in Development?
There have been several suggestions recently that Sony may be shifting its stance on their previous commitment to live-service games.
One indication came from this interview with the CEO, but another was from Sony’s chief financial officer earlier in August, who admitted that the strategy “wasn’t going smoothly.” The direct impact this has on games currently in development at PlayStation is yet to be seen, due to many titles in development being kept under wraps as it is, but a potential showcase in September might shine more of a light on what to expect.
Long Term IPs
Part of Hulst’s preferred strategy that he outlined was to try and grow successful games into long-lasting IPs.
Astro Bot is again a good example of this, with the recent success being a sequel to the very well-reviewed Astro’s Playroom that came pre-installed on every PlayStation 5.
This doesn’t necessarily seem to be anything new when you consider that many of the games associated with the platform are long-running series like God of War, the Last of Us, Horizon, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, Death Stranding and many others.
