PlayStation CEO Hermen Hulst wants the company to mitigate expensive risks with its future games, following last year’s high profile failure of live-service shooter Concord.
Speaking to Financial Times (via IGN), Hulst reflected on Concord’s failure in comparison to the huge success of mascot platformer Astro Bot. “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 said.
Playstation has now put into place more supervision of Sony’s owned studios, to ensure Concord’s fate isn’t repeated. “We have since put in place much more rigorous and more frequent testing in very many different ways,” said Hulst. “The advantage of every failure…is that people now understand how necessary that [oversight] is.”
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Analysts estimate Concord cost Sony around $250m, but was infamously shut down just two weeks after launch, resulting in the closure of its developer Firewalk Studio. Astro Bot, meanwhile, sold 1.5m copies in its first month and, by March this year, had sold 2.3m copies.
As a result of Concord’s failure, Hulst suggested to FT PlayStation isn’t so intent on releasing live-service games as it once was. That mirrors comments from Sony’s chief financial officer Lin Tao earlier this month, who admitted the company’s live-service strategy is “not entirely going smoothly”.
Indeed, Bungie’s Marathon reboot was indefinitely delayed after its initial unveiling earlier this year.
Instead, Hulst’s strategy is to grow Sony’s IP into long-lasting franchises, just as Astro Bot has gained positive notoriety with each game released.
“We take a very intentional approach to IP creation…understanding how a new concept can turn into an iconic franchise for PlayStation, that can then again become a franchise for people beyond gaming,” said Hulst.
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