This time last year, PlayStation had given us a roadmap for the brand’s direction moving forward. It made grand commitments to live-service titles, put heavy investments in a mobile initiative, and continued to launch new hardware. If one were to judge PlayStation’s 2024 on the rubric it set for itself, it would have been a failure. But that doesn’t tell the full story.
PlayStation’s 2024 felt like a restructuring phase. On the software side, we saw PlayStation embracing young players again, a decision that netted it a big Game of the Year win. Behind the games, we saw even bigger changes, specifically with the appointment of two new co-CEOs, Herman Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, that may have radical implications for the brand going forward. All of this sets the stage for a needed pivot for a brand that flirted with disaster in 2024. The only problem? That new vision hasn’t been communicated yet, and fans’ good will may be in short supply after a year of ups and downs.
Shifting strategy
Sony had a lot of pots on the stove this year, which made it a rollercoaster ride for fans. If there was one message PlayStation wanted to communicate as clearly as possible in 2023, it was the commitment to finding a live service hit. At the time, 12 such titles were reportedly in development and scheduled to be released between 2024 and 2026. So far, that effort has struggled to get off the starting blocks. Naughty Dog made the wise decision to cancel its Last of Us Online project to focus on single-player IPs such as the upcoming Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, but the real casualty was Concord.
There’s perhaps never been a game release quite as dire as Concord. Plenty of games have come out with massive ambitions only to be shut down in a few months, but Concord was a high-budget first-party game that shut down just weeks after launch, was permanently sunsetted not too long after, and had its entire studio disbanded. The ripples of this game’s failure prompted Sony president Hiroki Totoki to scale back the company’s live service ambitions to just six of the initial 12 planned titles by March 2026. Whether the remaining games even see the light of day likely depends on how the current slate performs. Concord has seemingly, and perhaps rightfully, shaken PlayStation’s confidence in creating its own live service hit. A more metered approach could be a wiser strategy given the massive risk involved in producing — and maintaining — even a single live service game.
But if we take a broader look at PlayStation’s other titles in 2024, things weren’t so bleak. Where Concord failed, Helldivers 2 paid off Sony’s gamble. The co-op shooter was a smash hit that neither players nor PlayStation likely saw coming. That underdog mentality gave Sony the live service win it desperately needed to prove that its strategy had merit. We will have to see if it has legs beyond this first year, but it was able to survive its PlayStation Network controversy through sheer goodwill and developer support reversing the decision after fan backlash. Finding a way to appropriately integrate PSN with its PC ports remains an unnecessary thorn in PlayStation’s side that it needs to remedy as the gap between exclusives hitting the platform continues to shrink.
Live service was a mixed success, but Sony pulled a disappearing act when it came to its mobile ambitions. It’s easy to forget that there’s an entire arm within the company focused on bringing new and existing IP to mobile, yet the only time this was mentioned was when developer Neon Koi was shut down before releasing its first title for the publisher. Even then, the news was somewhat buried beneath the news that Concord developer Firewalk Studios was also shut down.
As of now, this mobile effort feels like a non-starter for PlayStation that it wants to brush under the rug. Hopefully that isn’t the case and it is waiting to surprise us all with a lineup of mobile titles in 2025, but this wouldn’t be the first time PlayStation has failed to follow through on something it claims to be a pillar of its strategy — just look at its PlayStation VR2, which was virtually abandoned in 2024.
On the topic of hardware, 2024 was the year the long-rumored PS5 Pro was revealed and released. For the people who can appreciate the graphical boost and have the money to spend on it, it is a great (though not massive) improvement on the base model. The only issue is that the high price tag ends up making many think a bit more critically about whether those improvements are truly worth it. Whether the device is for you, it is a positive signal that PlayStation isn’t ready to move away from hardware as quickly as Xbox appears to be.
What has gotten more value is the underrated PlayStation Portal. It was launched in 2023 as a remote play companion screen but has essentially become a new device thanks to a 2024 update that allows it to stream games from the cloud without having to be tied to a PS5 console. For how much potential this device has now as a low-cost, low-commitment way to enter the PlayStation ecosystem, it is puzzling why it isn’t being touted as such.
You can’t talk about PlayStation’s wins this year without mentioning its biggest: Astro Bot. It rightfully accrued praise from fans and critics alike, winning our own Game of The Year award among many others. Beyond being an impeccably crafted 3D platformer, it celebrates PlayStation history with a sense of respect and optimism without falling into self-indulgence. PlayStation has found a natural mascot here that it would be foolish to abandon. It shows that Sony can give us more than the dark, dramatic epics it has been known for the past generation and a half.
Appealing to that wider audience is a fantastic return to form to the days when PlayStation was willing to be more friendly and experimental, but also a lower-risk endeavor. Astro was made in only three years by a team of about 60, which is a far cry from the hundreds of developers working for five or six years on the biggest AAA titles.
Finding focus
After struggling to fully deliver on its big-picture plans, Astro Bot could prove to be an existentially important win for Sony — if it learns the right lessons from it. The ultimate source of many PlayStation fans’ consternation with the brand, from my experience, is its constant pivoting. All the highs of 2024 didn’t feel telegraphed, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It only becomes a sticking point when PlayStation has already called its shot, only to walk back on most or all of those claims.
There’s a level of patience that should be given to the new leadership as they take ownership of the brand — a lot was set in motion that can’t be undone. However, 2024 felt like an attempt to pump the brakes on a lot of promises without a firm vision of how it will retune the car. Thankfully we are starting to get a better idea of upcoming PS5 games we can look forward to in 2025 and beyond, but the larger direction remains cloudy.
Is PlayStation still willing to make big bets on live service? Is mobile an avenue it will seriously attempt to pursue? Even refocusing on single-player offerings isn’t so simple with development timelines and budgets becoming unsustainable. It’ll be a few years until Sony can really build and execute a full vision around Astro‘s success.
2025 can be a fresh start for PlayStation under its new leadership, but it needs to let its players in on that vision soon. If it can’t firmly tell fans what kinds of games they can expect to play in the back half of PS5’s life, who knows how much longer they’ll stick around?
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