Earlier this fall, Sony surprised everyone by releasing its new hero shooter Concord. offline and issue full refunds to all players.
Concord never managed to reach more 700 simultaneous players on Steam, so some had already declared it dead on arrival when Sony canceled it. In any case, Sony seemed to be betting on much, much greater success. Otherwise, the publisher would not have contributed what is now reported as more than $200 million to the Concord development deal.
Emphasis on on 200 million dollars. Kotaku explains in your report that Sony's initial deal with now-defunct developer Firewalk Studios wasn't enough to cover Concord's lengthy eight-year development period, or Concord's intellectual property rights. Additionally, Sony purchased Firewalk in 2023 for an undisclosed amount.
This new information from Kotaku aligns with podcaster Colin Moriarty's report from 2023, which claimed that Sony spent $200 million in the first few years it took Firewalk to create Concord, as well as another $200 million on more development in 2023.
Some seriously doubt this apparent total of $400 million in development. If accurate, it would rival the development costs of some of Sony's biggest games, including revered titles like The Last of Us Part 2, Horizon Forbidden West, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake. To make it clear how colossal a failure this would be for Sony with a $400 million loss, that figure is $300 million more than it took to make Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and almost $100 million more expensive than Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
Perhaps most disappointing is that, for most players, there simply wasn't enough evidence of the time and money Firewalk invested in Concord, which by most accounts seemed like a disappointing and cumbersome FPS. We said the same thing in our concord review.
Concord is officially, completely and “permanently” dead when Sony announces that it will close the studio of the failed hero shooter and move on: “We will take advantage of the lessons learned.”