What did Sony see that warranted the funding AND acquisition of Concord and Firewalk? I don't get it.

Helldivers 2 only cost them about $50 million which is a smart investment even if didn't turn out successful. Destruction AllStars and whatever they paid for Foamstars probably cost them pennies, and both were nice attempts at rare/fresh genres. Them bombing were of no significance.

Concord is a historic bomba, and the only way to make up for the losses in the long run is to find some use for the developers they bought. Any idea how much they paid to acquire them?

Honestly, after assisting Sony's biggest failure released in the form of Concord and finally backtracking on it ... It obviously won't change their current future plans when it comes to stuff like FairGames or Bungie live service games, they will go on with those. It's just that each failure without any type of other success will likely erode such strategy overtime.

Likely also is the fact unless they were to try and retool Concord, I think there's a real chance that this was it for the studio and they're about to close them out sooner than we think. Which is just dreadful to think of, but the failure is so abysmal that it explains itself.

The cancellation of Factions might also be added to Gaas costs. It's probably still a net positive so far. I think the Gaas succes will largely depend on Marathon. However Bungie has seen much better days. If that one also fails Gaas could end up being the next moneydrain for PS.

Definitely, not gonna help their next fiscal earnings in any case. Honestly, how do you explain it to their shareholders without seeing them go into a sudden stock frenzy is gonna be interesting.

The downside of fallin stock is that shareholders are going to want Sony to save on costs. So that it can make more profit in the short run. Which could result in even more lay offs at PS and closing more studios.

For PS studios (especially Mm) the best case would be Astro selling really well. Maybe announcing some big games for 2025 to show that 2025 will be better could also help, but Sony seems hellbend on not showing anything these days.

Not enough to learn their lesson. So to hell with Marathon and Fargame$. Latter makes me laugh. A game from a multi-billion dollar company saying eat the rich. Capitalism for ya. Cringe as fuck.

I'm pretty sure that this autumn or december we'll see more exclusive games for the 2nd half of PS5 cycle. There'll be PS5P's presentation soon. But also this november marks 30 anniversary of PS1. It might be a good idea to hold one more digital event or something like that. The best option could be the return of PS Experience event in late 2024 but it's obvious it isn't happening. 

I mean, from the business perspective, the move is completely understandable. Sony does play by the rules of the market (and sometimes is a trend setter).

Making those live service games is the big money maker. No reason to deny them that chance to achieve what other companies did recently. Also it hasn't completely derived their past single player strategy because the studio that mainly works on them still are so it isn't a shift in management focus.

The whole live service avenue comes mostly from their newest acquisitions. So to them it's an added investment on top of what they already are successful at. 

Anyway, I'm not saying I agree with that business plan, I despite it too and to me the live-service gold rush from the end of 2010's to now is already mostly over when the juggernauts in a few genre formed themselves and kept the majority of that audience in their grasp. Adding on top of that hat is so difficult knowadays ...

Sony is mostly too late to make any significant headway in a such a crowded sector of the market. They will try of course as is seen.

They can't realistically pill up failures like Concord ad infinitum though. Their next projects will likely determine the fate of this initiative.

Ah yes. Marathon, if that pulls a helldivers and it likely could cause even if the games is bare bones like Destiny Bungies core gameplay can hold up anything. All they need to do is have Destiny level FPS feeling shooting and the rest could be fixed with time should it be not up to par. I'll add both Fanctions and Marathon to OP. 

From the rumor mill. Marathon development and Fairgames$ is not going well. Doesn't help Sony fired the lead on Marathon a 25-year Bungie vet for being a sex pest.