Sony President comments on Concord failure

Important takeaways

Sony is still analyzing Concord's failure.
The company believes that the game did not have enough “ports” to ensure it was in line with players' expectations.
Sony's “siloed” organizational structure possibly contributed to Concord's failure, according to the company's president, Hiroki Totoki.

PlayStation is still analyzing the failure to Harmonyaccording to Sony president Hiroki Totoki. The company official said as much in a recent Q&A session, which also saw him speculate on some of the reasons why Harmony ended as it did.

The first and last game from Sony subsidiary Firewalk Studios hit the market on August 23rd. It was closed just two weeks later, with Harmony thus becoming what is believed to be the costliest failure of Sony's live service ventures to date.

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Now that Harmony has been confirmed not to be coming back in any way shape or form, Sony president and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki reflected on the short-lived game during a question-and-answer session held after the company's latest earnings call. Among other things, the executive said that Sony is still “in the process of learning” what went wrong with Firewalk's hero shooter. Totoki offered a few theories on this, noting that every new IP carries an inherent risk and is far from a safe bet.

Concord didn't have enough “ports,” Sony president says

The Sony boss thought so too Harmony did not have enough “gates” in the form of “user testing” and other forms of evaluation. The timing of these checks was another potential problem he identified in retrospect. “We should have done those gates much sooner than we did,” he explained. Instead, Sony was seemingly unaware that the game could be a huge flop until Harmony open beta didn't generate any significant interest a month before the hero shooter's market debut.

Sony's organizational structure likely did no favors

Totoki also acknowledged that the structure of Sony's business may have contributed to the failure of Harmony. Specifically, he described Sony as a “siloed organization”, suggesting that its individual departments are currently quite isolated from each other and admitting that this may have caused a disconnect between them in Harmonys case.

Even if Harmony ended up being one of the most high-profile failures in Sony's history, it remains to be seen whether its fate will prompt the gaming giant to rethink its overall commitment to the live service. After all, the only other live service game Sony published in 2024, Helldivers 2became a big hit; it sold over 12 million copies in its first three months on the market, becoming the fastest PlayStation game to reach this figure. At the end of 2024, Sony still has several live service titles in the pipeline, including Haven Studios Fairgames and Bungie's Marathon. The latter is currently believed to be targeting a launch in the second half of 2025, while Fairgames is still without a tentative release window.

Assemble your crew of Freegunner space outlaws and team up online with friends for exciting 5v5 PVP modes across the galaxy in Concord.

Concord is a new team-based first-person shooter for PS5® and PC*. Handpick your personal roster of Freegunners from the crew of the Northstar – a group of outlaws and adventurers who work as guns for hire.

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From powerful mystics to skilled gunslingers and helpful healers, each Freegunner brings their own unique skills, personality and abilities that cater to a wide variety of playstyles.

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PLAY. PROGRESS. PERSONALIZE.
Earn and unlock a wide variety of character customization items and learn more about the characters, worlds and factions of the Concord Galaxy with the Galactic Guide.

You'll also be able to progress towards and unlock Freegunner Variants – versions of each of the 16 Freegunners with added Combat Trait modifiers to their base abilities. As you learn and master the characters, Combat Traits allow you to tailor each character to your playstyle.

System