With Astro Bot and Concord, This Could Prove to Be the Best and Worst Week for PlayStation of 2024
PlayStation is suffering from confusing times when one game is performing great and another couldn't even survive.
- PlayStation is going through the toughest time where one of its newly released games faced the lowest sales.
- Concord not only did bad on PS5 but it performed worse on Steam as well, with a really low player count.
- On the other hand, Astro Bot is giving Sony hope to enjoy its extreme success, as players had been eagerly looking forward to getting it.
September is full of events for gamers. While a whole bunch of new games are in the queue for release, some are closing their journey within a few days after initial release. This is something Sony has been going through. While one of its games received loads of love from players, the other one failed pathetically.
Concord and Astro Bot, both PlayStation 5 games, were scheduled to be released within a couple of weeks of one another. But little did Sony think that the former wouldn’t even survive till the latter launched. September 2024 has created history in PlayStation’s journey, with two games reaching two extremes.
Before Enjoying Astro Bot’s Success, Sony Removed Concord From the Market
Astro Bot is a PS5-exclusive platform game that was released on September 6. Being a sequel to the 2020 game, Astro’s Playroom, it has created considerable hype since it was announced, and with every new update and trailer, players started loving the game even more.
Even before the game was globally released, according to reviews, this game had 94 on Metacritic, which is something that even some renowned franchises struggle to reach. Despite this game not being a free one like its predecessors, it had satisfactory pre-order stats to ensure how much players have been looking forward to getting this game.
Therefore, with Astro Bot, September is super exciting for PlayStation. Just before Sony started enjoying this success, Concord failed disastrously. During PlayStation’s State of Play event, the trailer for Concord was first released, and since it came to light, players started brutally criticizing it.
With too many powerful shooter game franchises on the market, players almost instantly spotted the similarities the game had with others. While they thought the characterization was like Overwatch and Destiny 2, the colorful world according to them was similar to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
This hatred only got stronger with time, and when the open beta came, players even decided to boycott it, which resulted in a terribly low player count during the open beta of the game. Even after the release, Concord performed worse than Sony had imagined. Therefore, within 12 days, it canceled the game.
What Happened to Players Who Purchased Concord?
Concord was released on August 23 on PS5 and PC. However, the sales of the game were low beyond expectations. This first-person hero shooter game had sales at around 25,000. With a 1.8 Metacritic user score, this game performed extremely poorly even on Steam. It reached its all-time highest of 697 players on Steam, which was even lower than The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, the widely considered poor game of 2023.
Therefore, on September 3, the game director Ryan Ellis released an official statement, revealing that the team is withdrawing the game on September 6 to “explore options” to reach out to players.
Along with this, he confirmed the decreased sales are the main reason for this withdrawal, and players who have already paid for this game will receive a total refund. No matter where players have purchased the game, a refund will be generated.
Concord took eight years to be developed but couldn’t even survive for eight weeks in competition with free-to-play shooters like Destiny 2, Valorant, or PUBG.
