Sony President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki admitted that quality control on PlayStation exclusives may need a little tune-up to avoid another Concord situation. This statement was shared during the company’s November 8th financial presentation for the second quarter of fiscal year 2024. Following Firewalk Studios’ sci-fi live-service bomb last month, Totoki admitted that the PlayStation division may need to sharpen its standards to avoid another stumble.
Quoted via @Genki, Totoki says Sony needs to have more ‘detailed checks and gates’ before greenlighting projects to prevent situations like Concord from happening again. That includes user testing and ensuring that the company has feedback from fans to make ‘more sound decisions.’
“We need to repeat those gates more,” Totoki emphasized. “So that we could have caught and determine whether that will be accepted by the users or not. We need to have more information that will enable us to make more sound decisions.”
Totoki mentioned that each of the company’s divisions, including PlayStation, should break down internal barriers and collaborate more effectively. He also implied that choosing optimal launch windows and analyzing other titles’ release dates to maximize impact and avoid cannibalizing sales might’ve saved the project.
“We should have done those gates much earlier than we did,” he added. “Also we have a siloed organization. So going beyond the boundaries of those organizations in terms of development and also sales, that could have been much smoother”
In the same financial presentation, Totoki said that PlayStation will have no major first-party release until March 2025. Nevertheless, it’s focusing on launching ‘major single-player games’ every year from next ‘fiscal year onwards.’ That’s from April 2025 to March 2026. Half of the company’s live service projects are also put on hold out of 2025. His statement might hint at a possible shift in PlayStation’s roadmap, which was pushing a live-service games initiative with Concord at the helm.
“Looking back on the past, I think we need to go back to the basics and make it really stronger,” said the 60-year-old suit.
