Business As Concord flops, Sony exec says company doesn't have enough original IP

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As Concord flops, Sony exec says company doesn't have enough original IP​

Ahead of Astro Bot's franchise celebration.

News by Victoria Kennedy News Reporter
Published on Sept. 5, 2024
130 comments
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PlayStation maker Sony doesn't have enough original franchises which it has "fostered from the beginning".
That's according to Sony chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki, who in the same week PlayStation announced it was pulling Concord from sale told the Financial Times: "We're lacking the early phase (of IP) and that's an issue for us."

Concord - Launch Trailer I PS5 & PC Games. Watch on YouTube

Concord unceremoniously goes offline with an anticlimactic "error" message
Read more on Eurogamer.net
"One thing that you need is IP, that is step one," Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal added in the same article. "And if you don't start creating or buying in those that do, then the risk is someone else will do it. So the risk is not doing anything."
Totoki was referring to Sony generally, with films and anime also a consideration along with the company's gaming sector. The exec went on to say Sony is typically better at finding an audience for content that's already become popular in its home market.
However, his words do draw attention to that aforementioned Concord shut down. The game was available for less than two weeks, before the company decided it needed to reevaluate its new franchise's place on the market.
In a post earlier this week, Sony and developer Firewalk said Concord would be taken offline indefinitely, so the team could "determine the best path ahead" and "explore options, including those that will better reach our players".
At the same time, PlayStation is about to release one of its most anticipated games of the year: Astro Bot.
This game itself is an homage to the company's franchise history, and laced with nostalgia. Bots from Sony's games such as The Last of Us' Ellie and Joel, Uncharted's Nathan Drake, Horizon's Aloy, and Crash Bandicoot are all confirmed to be included in the forthcoming platformer.

 

[Staffy]

They're as good as those grifting companies filled with faggots and they should just shut down their gaming branch. If they fuck off now no one except their fanboys and ass kissers would notice.

 

[Fartificial Insmelligence]

I've been waiting for SOCOM II HD for like fifteen years at this point and would probably drop out of society if it actually happened.

I’m over here wishing we’d gotten a Days Gone II…

 

[AN/ALR56]

They went to shit the moment they went from Tokyo to LA.

That's the biggest reason for their downfall.

And it's not the first time a japanese company fucked up by going after what the US branch wanted.

Playstation was always the subbrand to introduce new shit that would eventually find it's way to other products, CD with the PS1, DVD with the ps2, Bluray, you get the point, Playstation was the cutting edge of hardware and quality, that started selling at a loss but always recovered in the end because either everyone bought one, or their media became the industry standard.

The ps4 and ps5 ended being gimped portable PCs instead for cost cutting reasons, so they have to keep doing mid-life refreshes because they can't simply run games after 3-5 years.

Now they are following every bad trend:

• DEI shit, kinda obvious, it's mostly westerners pushing for that shit, including censoring japanese material from games like yakuza on their localizations
• spending hundreds of millions on AAA actors for no fucking reason to try and get people who don't play games to buy a game because jack black is the VA or some shit, Deathstranding was a good example where the game got very fucking expensive for no reason because Kojima wanted everyone he met in LA to be on it.
• Copying trends instead of setting them, Concord was the latest example
• No more in-house engines, so everyone uses the same broke unreal 5 turd that is buggy and eating all performance and eats development time
• Trying to go the netflix model of subscription and streaming games instead of actually making quality products and then making no fucking profit because someone can play the entire library for 20 bucks a month.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

DEI shit, kinda obvious, it's mostly westerners pushing for that shit, including censoring japanese material from games like yakuza on their localizations

Yakuza is a terrible example. At least all the minigames and sexy stuff is still in the newer ones and was even in the Western release of Yakuza 3's remaster. Yakuza 3 had a lot of content removed from the Western release on PS3. Here's a list of what was removed.

PS3 Cut Content:

• 4 mini games (Ans X Ans, massage parlor, shogi, mahjong) removed.
• Hostess Clubs and Hostess Maker completely removed (sub-stories still present for 9 of the hostesses).
• 1 hostess completely removed.
• 22 sub-stories yanked.

Don't even try going, "But the tranny sub story!" 1 substory getting removed is nothing compared to 22 sub stories, 4 minigames(2 being Japanese board games, so removal of Japanese culture), and almost everything related to hostesses being removed.

Correction: Ans X Ans is not in the remaster. Supposedly because it's hard to translate or localize.

It was actually 3 tranny sub stories that were removed. Still has nothing on what Sega did with the PS3 version.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Live service is an absolutely terrible idea

 

[Pissmaster]

Here's a bajillion dollar consulting tip for Sony: hire non ESG woke people to make some original IP.

I would cry tears of joy if I were hired by SIE and given full creative control over a project.

 

[Kheapathic]

Gravity Rush, Legend of Dragoon, and I'll even say inFamous. Make a LoD prequel, set in the Dragon Campaign, with the OG Dragoons. It's that easy.

Sure we know how it ends, but that didn't stop Crisis Core from being good for what it was. Give us the OG Dragoons, from the start of Wingly terror to Rose being the sole survivor.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

Im glad to be forgotten.

 

[Str8Bustah]

the devil cannot create, the devil can only corrupt and destroy.

 

[Dr. Henry Armitage]

Personally, I think they should double down. Concord was to straight white male focused. They need real diversity in a game. I'm talking fat, paraplegic, neurodivergent, trans, persons of nonspecific gender, poc, with vitiligo in battle wheelchairs. Be the first company to have a playable trans down syndrome robot with blue hair. Spend 400 million on it. Surely the modern audience will flock to you and make you a bajillion dollars this time.

 

[Starved Artist]

Well, they killed them all. Sony used to have a plethora of games, now it's just another COD/Fortnite machine. Everything is a Fortnite machine.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

One thing that you need is IP

You really don't. You can just make a game, make it good, and then it becomes "IP".

Alternatively, Sony can just stop making games, and just make the hardware.

 

[The Ugly One]

You're going to wait forever thanks to the fact that the last SOCOM was released right when PSN had a major outage.

If they resurrected SOCOM, it would have fat vitiligo dyke operators and tumblrtoon graphics.

 

[breadandcircuses]

Sony should dust off the Sly Cooper franchise.

Sly Cooper, Ratchet & Clank, Crash Bandicoot, and Jak & Daxter should be PlayStation's go to E for Everyone family friendly, easily streamed billion dollar bench mark franchises, and yet...

 

[Shao Khan]

Ghost of Tsuzumiya is probably the latest sony banger and it's at least 3 or 4 years old now.

days gone, bitch

 

[Oilspill Battery]

The patapon devs were so desperate to make patapon 4 they literally crowdfunded 1.4 mil on kickstarter (which considering its literally a 2d game made with vector graphics voice acted by the director's 8 year old is pretty fucking insane) and renamed it to ratatan to independantly publish because sony didn't want to give them the go ahead to make a real sequel.

There's no less than 3 fucking fanmade sequel projects for patapon and multiple modding servers for what is essentially a fucking 20 year old IP who's last game came out 13 years ago.

But nah, guess there's no demand for old IPs.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Old IPs? When was the last time sony made a good, new IP?

Uncharted - 2007
TLoU - 2013
BloodBorne - 2015
Horizon - 2017
Death Stranding - 2019
Returnal - 2021
The Order 1886 - 2015
GoT - 2020

Argue over which are worth recognising as good, but there was a consistent pattern of new games coming out yearly. We've had nothing for three years, all three of those years were of a new generation.

Imagine that. A new generation with 1 new IP, a console that has gone up in price and flop after flop. If not for the pure apathy of console customers and the almost unbelievable levels of retardation that haven't killed Xbox, Playstation would have crashed out of the market.

Pit the PS5 against any previous console gen, barring the Xbox One, and it would have died a hilarious death. Dreamcast would have beaten the PS5.

 

[Bonesjones]

Just spend 10 or 20 to remake Stardew Valley in 3d, print money

 

[TrinityReformed]

It looks like a knock off of the reddit mascot.

The body makes it look fat and I fucking hate it's legs.

 

[Haramburger]

Hey analysts analyzing, how about instead of looking at spreadsheets of data you just talk to some fucking dudes at Gamestop in person, then follow up with some college guys? You're making it way too fucking hard on yourselves.