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[Heimdall_Xtreme]

This guy... its like he's refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room regarding Concord. He either ignores the outcry and humiliation from the gaming community or he's completely oblivious to it. Its like it didn't even register.

Let him make another failure, you'll see how Playstation cries.

It's like the other crap Naughty Dog released... Intergalatic, that piece of crap is going to be the company's worst game.

 

[SILKYSMOOTH30FPS]

With this guy in charge, the PS6 has no hope. If i were Sony, i'd put an actual gamer in charge, someone who understands and gets the vibe of the audience. These fucking suites should never be the ones canning and green lighting titles.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

With this guy in charge, the PS6 has no hope. If i were Sony, i'd put an actual gamer in charge, someone who understands and gets the vibe of the audience. These fucking suites should never be the ones canning and green lighting titles.

If you ask me, I'd start a studio called "New Japan Studio."

I'd make single-player games, prioritizing gameplay and charismatic characters, like Capcom does.

I'd get player feedback.

I'd make a title with a story and depth reminiscent of the PlayStation 1 era, in RPG mode.

I'd focus on the survival horror genre, but not like The Last of Us, but rather like what they made famous on PS2.

I'd leave the creativity to small, independent studios, similar to SoTC or Nier, or the like.

 

[kruis]

This guy... its like he's refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room regarding Concord. He either ignores the outcry and humiliation from the gaming community or he's completely oblivious to it. Its like it didn't even register.

You'll never hear these people use straight talk to the press. It's always this convoluted, wishy washy management mumbo jumbo.

 

[SILKYSMOOTH30FPS]

If you ask me, I'd start a studio called "New Japan Studio."

I'd make single-player games, prioritizing gameplay and charismatic characters, like Capcom does.

I'd get player feedback.

I'd make a title with a story and depth reminiscent of the PlayStation 1 era, in RPG mode.

I'd focus on the survival horror genre, but not like The Last of Us, but rather like what they made famous on PS2.

I'd leave the creativity to small, independent studios, similar to SoTC or Nier, or the like.

I would do something similar, games that don't depend on a 100M+ budget either. But until Sony leaves the woke shithole that is Cali, i don't think this is happening. They need to get their asses back to Japan.

 

[GymWolf]

This just confirms one of two things:
1. he knows exactly why it fails and has to address it, but will never admit to the actual reason
2. he's fed this information from an echo chamber of sycophants who truly, delusionally, believe that this is the reason; like they are actually confounded why it failed so badly and see this as the only possible reason

Both things are awful.

Did anyone in his position EVER said the truth about a failure?

Did you people really expected him to say the game failed because it was a woke pile of trash with some of the most terrible character design ever made?

He is a moron but NOBODY from any company is ever gonna do differently, let's be realistic.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If March 2026 is the new final deadline, it'll probably come out either December to beat the Xmas rush or Q1 2026.

If that holds true, the beta wont come out till later on. No point doing a beta in July or August if September launch is out of the cards.

They've been radio silent for a month. They wont show anything about the game till probably Sep or Oct.

 

[Dr. Samuel Hayden]

People should stop blaming Jim Ryan.

Hermen Hulst is the grand architect of the live service push, and he has zero intentions of stopping it.

 

[DrFigs]

this guy needs to fucking go. he is clueless

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Did you people

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Concord Staff Says Game Was Referred To As "The Future of PlayStation"

A member of staff who worked on Concord spoke to Colin Moriarty, saying the game was considered to be "the future of PlayStation."

wccftech.com

^ don't forget that Concord was supposedly Hermen Hulst's baby that nobody was allowed to criticize.

Maybe he should blame himself for the toxic positivity. You can totally tell that the public beta test was the first time that this game was exposed to honest, unfiltered criticism.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

Marathon is going to be good. I said it in every Marathon thread here after playing it and wasn't fully sold until jumping in a few games. The alpha was an alpha, I'm not sure what some other individuals who played it knows what that means. It's going to have some rough stuff in there in that state and not feature complete, but the gameplay loop is good and serves as good building blocks for the game to expand.

 

[Bernardougf]

Did anyone in his position EVER said the truth about a failure?

Did you people really expected him to say the game failed because it was a woke pile of trash with some of the most terrible character design ever made?

He is a moron but NOBODY from any company is ever gonna do differently, let's be realistic.

"The failure of concord was a mix of the highly competitive market plus the game not resonating with a large portion of the gaming community, through feedback from our fans we are now able to understand the reasons for this and will strive to deliver games and experiences better aligned with what our fans want and expect from us"

Thats a nice answer with a mea culpa that dont say much but also dont appear you dont have a clue and at the same time is listening to feedback.

 

[Braag]

Does Hermen even believe himself that Concord only failed because it was released in a completive market. If that's what he truly believes then oh boy...

 

[Dirk Benedict]

Yeah right. If it had characters who looked like this, it would've got at least 100x more players.

Still probably wouldn't have been enough to save it, but don't even try to pretend like "insufficiently differentiated" was the sole problem with that turd.

I'm calling bullshit. That game's design was so bad it stuck out from anything else, like diamond tits in the dead of winter.

 

[Plague Doctor]

Either Hulst is aloof as fuck with Concord or willfully ignoring the multiple of elephants in the room (including the one on the hero roster)

Or could be a little from column A and a little from column B

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Marathon feedback "varied but useful" Seriously, send this clown to a Mars mission.

One of the biggest idiots in the industry.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

insufficiently differentiated

 

[Jinzo Prime]

These fucking suites should never be the ones canning and green lighting titles.

Thing is, he's not a just a suit. He was the managing director for Guerrilla Games since Killzone back in 2004. He built a team that made succesful games for 20 years before becoming Head of Playstation Studios, he should really know better.

 

[EN250]

"Concord insufficiently differentiated to be a success"

You could make a copy of the most generic as fuck tacked on FPS game with the most generic as fuck bald meathead dudebrah space marine characters from the PS360 era and it'd trounce Concord CCU/sales by a landslide

 

[GymWolf]

"The failure of concord was a mix of the highly competitive market plus the game not resonating with a large portion of the gaming community, through feedback from our fans we are now able to understand the reasons for this and will strive to deliver games and experiences better aligned with what our fans want and expect from us"

Thats a nice answer with a mea culpa that dont say much but also dont appear you dont have a clue and at the same time is listening to feedback.

He could have done better, sure.

 

[SILKYSMOOTH30FPS]

Thing is, he's not a just a suit. He was the managing director for Guerrilla Games since Killzone back in 2004. He built a team that made succesful games for 20 years before becoming Head of Playstation Studios, he should really know better.

I mean, was KZ even a good franchise? It always had sweet tech, but gameplay wise, it was super shallow. Him being in charge of a studio for a while doesn't mean much, otherwise KZ would have evolved into a great shooter, which it never did. The guy doesn't strike me as someone who games in his free time. Instead, i see him sitting on a 9K dollars leather chair, smoking a $120 cigar and drink some fking $400 Wisky. This dude ain't suited for the job of feeling out what's good and what sux in a game. But then again, this is typical for the industry, so nobody is surprised.

 

[MrRibeye]

Hermen:
it's our goal to release a very bold, very innovative, and deeply engaging title.

There are almost zero vehicular combat games. The rumored Twisted Metal reboot would have been more bold, more innovative than releasing another shooter game. You don't know what you want Hermen.

 

[Gojiira]

I mean to be fair at least he's saying that their assumptions for the market has been reevaluated which should be a good sign…Devils advocate he's referring to their pandering to the DEI crowd and its non-existent demographic..

 

[Memati187]

Fuck this guy and everyone involved in the recent decision making. I always gamed on a playstation first, since the first one and will keep doing so. But Sony sucks right now.

No real playstation fan should slide any bs from these guys, otherwise we end up like our green brethrens, who are still in Phase 1 of the grieving process.

 

[Hypereides]

There are almost zero vehicular combat games. The rumored Twisted Metal reboot would have been more bold, more innovative than releasing another shooter game. You don't know what you want Hermen.

Ribeye, please do us a solid and throw a prank on him or something. He needs to be trolled back.

 

[SolarFry]

His past is 2 games: One is the Killzone franchise, aka. the generic, boring "Halo killer", the other is Horizon Zero Dawn, a fun idea made into a decent, albeit very Ubisoft-like open world game. And suddenly this man is responsible for Sony's first party strategy and games? How? Why?

The classic promoting and self-destructing from within. This man has not been fired yet and it is mind boggling.

Him and Jim Ryan basically sabotaged Sony.

 

[Hudo]

Herman is so high on Aloy's armpit smell

 

[EverydayBeast]

CellFactor: Psychokinetic Wars, quake wars, concord, marathon

These games all are failures and I can think of more shooters that failed

 

[Astray]

? What dodge? Did you read the post you originally quoted?

No one disputed that Concord failed, the question was if First Descendant was a success.. The answer is no btw.

 

[KaiserBecks]

Competition, eh? I'm not a marketing expert, but I assume one would analyse the market before going into development or at least decide on a launch window? But who am I fooling, we all know why the game flopped.

 

[midnightAI]

It's like the other crap Naughty Dog released... Intergalatic, that piece of crap is going to be the company's worst game.

You are just spouting nonsense to get a reaction now aren't you?

 

[SomeNorseGuy]

"As I said earlier, we've introduced much more rigorous processes for validating, for re-validating, our creative, our commercial, our development assumptions and hypotheses, and we now do that on a much more ongoing basis."

Would love belive this, but has the climate changed enough that they'll actually have the balls to say "That's a fucking retarded idea/design, go back to your cubicle and do better."

 

[ValiantInstance]

It's not just about being 'insufficiently differentiated'. Just look at the character models... who'd want to play them and, most of all, spend cash on cosmetic items for them?

Sex sells. No one wants to play as a they/them robot or the female thugnificent.

 

[Arsic]

So when are they going to delay Marathon? I was expecting an announcement this week if they weren't going to do it before their State of Play. Seems like it needs to be soon?

I saw on Reddit they said it would launch by March 2026?

So I came here expecting a news of delay.

 

[Scrawnton]

Why should be the cause of the flops? Like seriously? Who give a fuck if the game is good about this woke stuff?

Because people just don't want it? How many products like this must be rejected by the market for people to realize that a vast majority of people don't want stuff that's forced like this? You look at Concord and you just know they went out of their way to not offend anyone with a certain ideology and people noticed and voted with their wallets.

First Descendant had that and it turned out to be a mid-tiered success at very best.

But did the market reject it? Was it shut down instantly and refunded?

I still believe Sony is keeping Hulst around until the remaining live service slop ships. Once that era is over he'll be out.

I bet he is in the dark about greenlighting PS6 projects. He will be gone before the generation transition takes place. Hopefully the Japanese arm of Sony is handling all PS6 stuff.

 

[Zacfoldor]

He can't blame woke. If he did the wokies would come out of the woodwork to pretend to boycott Sony.

HH KNOWS it was the woke and will get rid of that shit in the future. If there is one thing Hermen ain't, it's an ideologue.

Having T&A doesn't guarantee success but going way out of your way to not show any attractive female characters makes the social engineering very obvious and offputting. That is why nobody buys woke games.

Herman is so high on Aloy's armpit smell

 

[DenchDeckard]

Gotta love corpo speak.

 

[Banjo64]

It was insufficiently differentiated as a moderate entity

 

[Idleyes]

Ok I was trying to keep my mouth shut as a PC gamer but man it's obvious Sony ditched focusing on innovative, narrative-driven Single Player experiences to chase trends. Sony is supposed to be a trend setter.

 

[Bernardougf]

There are almost zero vehicular combat games. The rumored Twisted Metal reboot would have been more bold, more innovative than releasing another shooter game. You don't know what you want Hermen.

Cant call vehicles they/them .. so no dice

 

[Astray]

But did the market reject it? Was it shut down instantly and refunded?

Yes the market rejected it by reviewing it badly (%56 positive on Steam) and going for other options. What's the point of being the size of 5 gorillion Concords if you're still going bust and not able to pay your staff for the long term anyways?

Games shutting down or delisting is a publisher's decision. You will note that games like Gollum are still up despite being objectively one of the worst games of all time, if you ask me, it's a matter of whether the dev or publisher was sufficiently shamed by the bad release.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Very few people played the beta, so there is no bigger sign of rejection than that.

 

[Bernardougf]

HH KNOWS it was the woke and will get rid of that shit in the future. If there is one thing Hermen ain't, it's an ideologue.

Can you elaborate on this ? you seem pretty sure

If reports are to be believed concord was HH baby and if he isn't an ideologue aint no fucking way he was walking in that studio with the "professor" and that game and thinking "welp this seems about right and clean" ... I would think anyone normal and not attached to this ideology would walk into that cesspool and immediately start 100 red alarms in their head.

Not trying to be a dick.. but maybe you have specific info about him

Edit: because what happened to concord may well have been Japan branch looking saying WTF and just slaying the katana top to bottom.

 

[ReBurn]

Oh I think it was sufficiently differentiated. Just nobody liked the way it was different.

 

[TheKratos]

Stop with the shitty names would be a start.

 

[Scrawnton]

Yes the market rejected it by reviewing it badly (%56 positive on Steam) and going for other options. What's the point of being the size of 5 gorillion Concords if you're still going bust and not able to pay your staff for the long term anyways?

Games shutting down or delisting is a publisher's decision. You will note that games like Gollum are still up despite being objectively one of the worst games of all time, if you ask me, it's a matter of whether the dev or publisher was sufficiently shamed by the bad release.

You say "sufficiently shamed" I say the market flat out rejected. You can't compare Gollum to Concord. Ones a game, ones a service.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

No one disputed that Concord failed, the question was if First Descendant was a success.. The answer is no btw.

Who was arguing that First Descendant was a success?

 

[Karim]

Because people just don't want it? How many products like this must be rejected by the market for people to realize that a vast majority of people don't want stuff that's forced like this? You look at Concord and you just know they went out of their way to not offend anyone with a certain ideology and people noticed and voted with their wallets.


But did the market reject it? Was it shut down instantly and refunded?


I bet he is in the dark about greenlighting PS6 projects. He will be gone before the generation transition takes place. Hopefully the Japanese arm of Sony is handling all PS6 stuff.

People don't want bland generic games. I guess. Though I don't get it how such goofy weirdo design in what way should represent any kind of ideology. Seems more a stereotypic way to see such culture by the same industry and the market has that bizzarre convinction to can standardize everything.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Dudes a fucking moron.