Sony is still "learning" from Concord's failure

Concord, eh? Didn't do too well in the long run. Not that it really got a chance at the long run. The game barely lasted for a couple of weeks before being shut down and having its studio shuttered. It's likely we'll still be talking about it over the next few years, and Sony is still learning about the mistakes it made with this release.

In a Q&A investors call (transcribed by VGC), Sony president, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki gave an update on what went wrong, and what the company will take forward for its future live-service endeavours. "Currently, we are still in the process of learning," Totoki said. "And basically, with regards to new IP, of course, you don't know the result until you actually try it...Going forward, in our own titles and in third-party titles, we do have many different windows. And we want to be able to select the right and optimal window so that we can deploy them on our own platform without cannibalisation, so that we can maximize our performance in terms of title launches. That's all I have."

Elsewhere in the call, Sony senior vice president for finance Sadahiko Hayakawa noted that even with one live-service failure, the company still saw success in the genre with Helldivers II. "We launched two live-service games this year, Helldivers 2 was a huge hit, while Concord ended up being shut down. We gained a lot of experience and learned a lot from both."

What do you think Sony should take away from Concord?