After a high-profile failure with Concord and a major triumph with Astro Bot last year, PlayStation is reshaping its strategy to reduce reliance on live-service games, prioritize established franchises, and enforce tighter oversight across its owned studios.
In an interview with the Financial Times, PlayStation CEO Hermen Hulst said the company aims to minimize the impact of future large-scale risks by identifying potential failures sooner. “I don’t want teams to always play it safe, but when we do fail, I want it to happen early and at a lower cost.”
Concord was anything but a low-cost misstep. Analysts estimate Sony invested roughly $250 million in the game, only for it to flop so badly that the company discontinued it two weeks after launch and closed its developer, Firewalk Studios, shortly thereafter. In stark contrast, Astro Bot launched to universal praise last year, earning multiple awards and selling 2.3 million copies by March 2025—becoming one of the PlayStation 5’s top-selling titles.
The two games differ in countless ways, and their development paths were equally distinct. Yet Hulst’s key takeaway is the need for stronger oversight at Sony’s internal studios to catch projects drifting toward Concord-style failures before they escalate into costly disasters—and to cancel or course-correct them in time.
“We’ve since implemented far more rigorous and frequent testing across many different dimensions,” Hulst said. “The silver lining of every failure is that everyone now recognizes how essential this kind of oversight truly is.”
The Financial Times spoke with several Sony studio heads, who confirmed this new scrutiny has led to increased emphasis on group testing, stronger communication between internal teams, and closer collaboration among studio leadership. “If we’re heading toward a giant landmine—like another studio is developing the exact same game—that’s valuable insight,” said Jason Connell, art director at Sucker Punch, the studio behind Ghost of Yōtei.
This sentiment carries particular weight given Concord’s failure, which analysts attribute to multiple factors, including market saturation in multiplayer live-service shooters. Hulst indicated in the interview that PlayStation is no longer as focused on producing live-service titles as it once was. Still, the company has Bungie’s Marathon slated for release before March 2026—a game that has raised concerns among Bungie fans due to delays, staff cuts, and a lack of clear information about its direction.
But Hulst also has another strategic priority: expanding Sony’s biggest proprietary franchises. Astro Bot’s success has grown steadily across multiple titles, with the little robot becoming more beloved with each release. According to the Financial Times, Hulst now wants studios to think long-term about how their IPs can evolve into larger, enduring franchises—following the path of The Last of Us and Uncharted. “We take a very intentional approach to IP creation… understanding how a new idea can become an iconic PlayStation franchise—and one that extends beyond gaming,” he said.
This year, PlayStation is set to release Ghost of Yōtei and Lost Soul Aside, with Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls and Housemarque’s Saros arriving in 2026. Other titles such as Fairgames, Marvel’s Wolverine, Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, Marathon, and more remain in active development.
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