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Sony commits to single-player games in wake of Concord failure

Astro Bot dresses up as Kratos.
Sony Interactive Entertainment

Sony is not giving up on single-player games despite investing a lot into live-service games over the past few years, with plans to release at least one “major” single-player game every year “from next fiscal year onwards.”

The company released its Q2 2024 financial report on Friday, and there was a lot of good news for the video game division despite the high-profile failure of live-service title Concord. Earlier this year. The hero shooter only wracked up a few hundred players on Steam at launch — only 697 concurrent users at peak, according to SteamDB. Sony Interactive Entertainment took the game offline two weeks after launch before eventually sunsetting it and shutting down developer Firewalk Studios.

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Sony has also been at the center of issues with Destiny 2 developer Bungie, which laid off more workers this year and restructured to create a new studio inside PlayStation.

However, single-player games have done well for Sony this year. While there haven’t been many first-party releases, the family platformer Astro Bot was a big hit for the company. According to the financials, it’s sold over 1.5 million copies over the first nine weeks. It even managed to convert users, with 37% of Astro Bot buyers not having bought a first-party game from Sony over the past two years. It’s also the highest-rated 2024 game on Metacritic at the time of this writing (tied with Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree)

Astro Bot - Announcement Trailer | PS5 Games

“We intend to build an optimal title portfolio during the current midrange plan period that combines single-player games, which are our strength, and which have a higher predictability of becoming hits due to our proven IP, with live service games that pursue upside while taking on a certain amount of risk upon release,” the presentation transcript reads.

So basically, Sony will continue to release big single-player games based on their established IP, like Ghost of Yotei, the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, and Marvel’s Wolverine. While the company hasn’t officially announced other games that would fit in this category, fans can be on the lookout for another Final Fantasy 7 Remake entry, another God of War title, a game to cap off the Horizon trilogy, and more Marvel titles as reported in the Insomniac Games leak.

It’ll also retool its live-service strategy a bit, with the company “improving our live service game processes” and sharing lessons it learned from Concord‘s development and shutdown.

The company has also been riding sales of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. And while Helldivers 2 is a live-service shooter, it’s been a big hit for Sony on both PC and PlayStation 5.

Carli Velocci
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
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