PlayStation maker Sony doesn't have enough original franchises that it has “nurtured from the start.”
That's according to Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki, who in the same week that PlayStation announced it would be pulling Concord from sale, told the Financial time“We are missing the initial phase (of IP) and that is a problem for us.”
“What you need is intellectual property, that's the first step,” Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal added in the same article. “And if you don't start creating or buying from those that do, the risk is that someone else will do it. So the risk is doing nothing.”
Totoki was referring to Sony in general, and also to movies and anime, in addition to the company's gaming sector. The executive went on to say that Sony is often better at finding an audience for content that has already become popular in its home market.
However, his words draw attention to the aforementioned closure of Concord. The game was available for less than two weeks, before the company decided it needed to reevaluate its new franchise's place in the market.
In a blog post earlier this week, Sony and developer Firewalk said Concord would remain offline indefinitely, so the team could “determine the best path forward” and “explore options, including those that will best resonate with our players.”
At the same time, PlayStation is about to launch one of its most anticipated games of the year: Astro Bot.
This game itself is a tribute to the company's franchise history and is steeped in nostalgia. Robots from Sony's games, such as Ellie and Joel from The Last of Us, Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Aloy from Horizon, and Crash Bandicoot, have all been confirmed to be included in the upcoming platformer.