Biggest PlayStation Mistake

PlayStation may be one of the biggest names in the gaming industry, but that doesn't mean it's immune to trouble. In fact, the company has had some pretty big mistakes over the years, from over-investing in ambitious projects to a lack of faith in certain pursuits, showing that even the very best can have their pitfalls.

However, these fumbles are mostly just blemishes on an otherwise pretty solid record, as PlayStation has for the most part remained a fairly well-respected producer in the gaming world since its early days. What they show is how successful companies can have many problems of their own and a few catastrophic mistakes, regardless of whether they have done well in the past.

Blood borne

No sequel or remaster in sight

Details:

• Countless rumours, but no concrete information

• Bluepoint is now closed

Blood borne is widely considered one of the best games ever made, but despite that acclaim, it remains locked to a decade-old system. No matter how many times players have asked for a sequel or a remaster, nothing ever seemed to go right, and after so many leaks and potential rays of light at the end of the tunnel, it seems that now all chances have finally disappeared.

Sony kept the name itself and kept everything to themselves, and it seemed like it would stay that way until the end of time. But Bluepoint, the team that worked on Demon's Souls remaster, struck the idea of ​​one Blood borne remake to Sony, and they actually approved the project, but FromSoftware blocked the project itself, leaving the fate of the IP uncertain once again. It's unclear if a remaster or sequel could have happened sooner if Sony had, but the reality is that Blood borne likely to remain a thing of the past for the foreseeable future.

Harmony

One of the biggest flops of all time

Details:

• Taken offline within two weeks

• Losses in the hundreds of millions

Harmony was announced back in May 2023 with a cinematic trailer that showed the characters for the first time, in a world that was supposed to shake up the PvP scene. When the game was released just a year later, it practically never took off, with very limited sales and player numbers ultimately resulting in it being shut down just two weeks after launch.

The reasons for its failure are very much open to opinion, but the most commonly cited were a lack of originality in a saturated market, as well as a $40 price tag for a game that stood alongside countless free-to-play titles in the same genre. Regardless of the cause, the shutdown was reported to cost PlayStation somewhere in the region of $200-400 million, making it one of the biggest disasters in gaming history.

The last of us online

No Co-Op Apocalypses today

Details:

• Canceled internally due to concerns regarding the transition to live service

• Focus on single player games instead

The last of us online was an aborted multiplayer version of the iconic zombie experience originally conceived as a standalone online game set in the same universe as the previous games. Developed by Naughty Dog, the project began as a multiplayer component for the sequel before evolving into a much larger live-service title with its own progression system, world design, and long-term support plans.

However, as development progressed, the studio realized that the scope of the project had expanded far beyond a traditional multiplayer mode, and supporting a live service game would have required a large dedicated team for years after launch, something the developers simply could not accommodate. Whether or not the project would have been a success will remain a mystery, but it's still a shame that PlayStation and Naughty Dog couldn't find a way to make it work in the end.

PS Vita

So close handheld dominance

Details:

• High entry price and memory card

• Less support than PS4

Launched in 2011 as Sony's successor to the PSP, the PlayStation Vita promised near-console-quality gaming on a handheld device. Technically, it was impressive for its time, with an OLED screen and strong hardware capable of running ambitious titles like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, but due to the high price, the system struggled to achieve mainstream success and was gradually abandoned by Sony.

Several factors contributed to the Vita's decline, such as the expensive proprietary memory cards and the lack of major releases, as many in-house studios shifted their focus towards the fast-growing PlayStation 4. While not a complete failure, it would have been interesting to see another handheld towards the mid-2010s, as something to rival the global success of the Switch, but more than a niche experiment is up today. right here.

PS3 – PS2 backwards compatibility

Only certain models get to have fun

Details:

• Later PS3s no longer supported PS2 discs

• Hindered long-term console value

At launch PlayStation 3 originally supported backwards compatibility with the massive library of the PlayStation 2, a feature that seemed like a natural extension of Sony's ecosystem. Early PS3 models included the actual PS2 hardware or partial hardware emulation, allowing players to run most PS2 discs with little problem, but this feature would quickly be phased out over time.

In an effort to lower the retail price, Sony gradually removed the functionality from later PS3 revisions, and while the decision lowered costs, it also frustrated longtime PlayStation fans who expected seamless continuity between generations. Given the PS2's massive library and popularity, abandoning backwards compatibility was widely seen as a missed opportunity, and PlayStation ultimately lost a powerful selling point that could have bolstered the PS3's early introduction and long-term value.