Today, Sony announced they are shutting down two of the studios that they have acquired over the last few years.
In an email that was originally distributed internally to Sony owned companies, Hermen Hulst (the CEO of the Sony Studio business group) shared that they had decided to shut down Neon Koi, and Firewalk Studios. Both of these studios were acquired by Sony over the last few years, with Neon Koi (then going by Savage Games) acquired in 2022, and Firewalk Studios being acquired in 2023.
Firewalk Studios acquisition was part of a push towards live service games, with the company working to create Concord, which released this year to dismal reception. Infamously, Concord's reception was so bad that within weeks Sony was offering refunds to everyone for the game, and taking it off shelves while they pondered what to do. The decision seems to be to shutter the doors on Concord, and the people who made it completely.
The PvP first person shooter genre is a competitive space that’s continuously evolving, and unfortunately, we did not hit our targets with this title. We will take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to...
