There was a time in the gaming industry when “True L’s” was a rarity. Sure, developers and publishers would sometimes make a game that “didn’t do as hoped,” but it was rarely an “unmitigated failure.” Yet, in recent times, you can very easily point to key titles from major teams and companies and go, “Yeah, that bombed pretty hard.” In 2024, there were several games that had “distinction,” and one of them was the title Concord, which was an exclusive entry on PlayStation. The game was the latest in a long line of “team shooters” but was billed as being the “next great franchise” that would challenge the great sci-fi series of the last several generations.
…it lasted just two weeks. Yeah, from the moment the game was announced at a Sony State of Play, gamers knew that the title wouldn’t be one they played, and they made that very clear. Yet, Sony barreled on through, even having an animation made for a certain Amazon Prime Video series because they “felt it would be so successful that everyone would want to watch this other piece of content in the universe.” Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and the animation now is placed in the “that’s ironic” section of history. There has been a LOT of finger-pointing in the industry and within Sony to try and figure out how the project went so wrong. The irony that some of you may find is that beloved PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida was apparently the one who first greenlit the project:
That is indeed shocking, and some are calling this a “rare L” for the beloved exec, especially how, in a different interview, he noted that he would’ve “resisted” the move to live-service titles that Jim Ryan spearheaded.
So, do we blame Shuhei Yoshida for what happened with Concord? No. Here’s the thing, while he did greenlight the game, he specifically stated that he greenlit the “prototype contract.” He also said that Firewalk, at the time, was a “really small team.” It’s important to remember that the game, by one of its designers own words, was in development for eight years, LONG after Yoshida was forced into the role of head of the Sony indie teams.
That means that the game evolved into its doomed state outside of Yoshida’s view and perspective. Perhaps if he had still been head of PlayStation Studios at the time of the game’s core development, the game might have been better. We’ll never know.
