Sony’s brilliant new strategy of jacking up prices on both hardware and games to cover the financial sinkhole they dug themselves into with Concord is a real winner.
After hilariously fumbling their live service shooter, Concord, which likely led to a colossal $400 million loss, Sony is scrambling to make up for their failed investment. Their brilliant ideas? Unveiling the PlayStation 5 Pro at a jaw-dropping $700 for an all-digital console that’s essentially just a waste of silicon. It’s becoming clearer than ever that Sony has more consoles than actual exclusives. Hell, they just announced that the propaganda-laden Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be heading to PC next year.
In the meantime, Sony’s resorting to the laziest cash grabs possible, like dropping a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn from 2017, a game that already got a PC port back in 2020.
Apparently, Sony thought we were all dying to spend more money on Horizon Zero Dawn, a game that’s barely old enough to collect dust. Because, of course, what today’s PS5 and PC players really want is a slightly shinier version of a game that’s only seven years old on one platform and four years old on another.
So, what did Sony do? They yanked the original version from Steam and doubled its price on the PlayStation Store just to push their $10 upgrade package on anyone who already owned it.
And what are you getting for that extra cash? A few tweaks to the motion capture, a sprinkle of graphical upgrades, and, wait for it, a mandatory PlayStation Network account for PC players. You know, something that wasn’t required when the game first hit PC.
This half-baked remaster launched on October 31 to the sound of… nothing. Not a peep, not a cheer, just the echo of Sony patting themselves on the back for yet another soulless money grab.
If a AAA game drops and nobody’s around to play it, did it even happen? That’s the existential crisis I’m having right now, especially after Sony’s pathetic attempt at milking their Horizon Zero Dawn remaster. They managed to rope in just 2,500 suckers on launch day, and that number quickly tanked by the hundreds within hours, probably due to some refunds pouring in on Steam.
Sony’s latest remaster disaster has now officially become one of their worst-performing PC titles, managing to sink even lower than the unnecessary re-release of Until Dawn.
Until Dawn, a decade-old game didn’t need any touch-ups, but Sony just couldn’t resist dumping cash into an Unreal Engine remake that looks like hot garbage compared to the PS4 original. We’re talking marginally superior visuals despite being on hardware supposedly boasting ten times the teraflop muscle.
They butchered the original’s atmosphere, replacing it with the trendy, but “realistic” real-time lighting, proving once again that sometimes, newer isn’t better.
There’s an obvious reason why this the remaster for Horizon Zero Dawn flopped as hard as Until Dawn. Sony’s been hellbent on forcing PC players into their ecosystem. Just look at the disaster that was Helldivers 2. They tried and thankfully failed to mandate PC players link a PlayStation Network (PSN) account to their Steam profile, resulting in a tidal wave of negative reviews, literally hundreds of thousands, until they had to abandon the whole scheme.
But did Sony learn? Hell no. They doubled down, insisting on PSN requirements for their future PC releases, even for single-player games, effectively blocking sales in over 170 countries.
PC gamers are understandably pissed, and they’ve made their feelings known by ignoring the launch of God of War: Ragnarok. This sequel was already doomed thanks to the involvement of Sweet Baby Inc., a consultancy firm that thought it’d be a great idea to race-swap the character of Angrboda.
And let’s not forget the colossal trainwreck that was Concord. This $40 live-service shooter featured some of the blandest and ugliest progressive characters imaginable. The game couldn’t even scrape together 700 players on PC, and rumors suggest it ended up being a $400 million bomb. Sony quietly pulled the plug on it just two weeks after launch, even going so far as to shut down Firewalk Studios. At this rate, Sony’s becoming the industry’s punchline.
Sony’s scrambling for cash again, and their latest attempt to drain wallets comes in the form of the PS5 Pro a $700, digital-only console that supposedly upgrades the PS5’s graphical muscle but still sticks with that same old weak CPU. And guess what? You’ll have to shell out even more for a vertical stand and a disc drive add-on. Meanwhile, the PS5 itself still lacks enough exclusives to make it worth buying in the first place, let alone paying for this so-called upgrade.
Remember when the PS4 Pro launched at the same price as the original PS4 at $399? Yeah, those days are long gone. Now, the PS5’s price has only climbed higher since 2020, everywhere except the USA, where Sony Interactive Entertainment is conveniently set up shop.
And let’s talk about Hermen Hulst, who’s now leading Sony’s charge. This is the same guy who thought we all wanted a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn. Apparently, they were convinced it would be a blockbuster, probably because the original game’s “millions” of sales were mostly thanks to being bundled with PS4 consoles.
Sony’s boneheaded move to pull the original Horizon Zero Dawn from digital platforms has understandably pissed off a lot of people, especially since most of those potential buyers already owned the game on PC.
The 2020 release had a peak player count of 56,557, absolutely dwarfing the remaster’s embarrassing peak of just 2,538 players. Imagine that: the original game, which you can’t even buy anymore, still gets more love than this cash-grab remaster even today.
The whole Horizon Zero Dawn Remaster is a flop, plain and simple. Sony tried to hype it up with promises of “brand new motion capture” and a few minor graphical upgrades, but the reality is that no one asked for a barely seven-year-old game to be “remastered.”
It’s almost guaranteed that Sony lost money on this project, which just further proves that Hermen Hulst has no clue what he’s doing. This is the same guy who pitched Concord as the next big thing before he took over as PlayStation’s CEO.
Hermen Hulst, co-founder of Guerrilla Games, seems determined to establish Horizon as PlayStation’s flagship series, with Aloy constantly being pushed into the spotlight. The ongoing focus on the franchise, evidenced by an unnecessary remaster and the upcoming LEGO Horizon Adventures, suggests a clear bias towards making Aloy a PlayStation mascot.
However, the less than lukewarm reception to Zero Dawn’s remaster indicates that Aloy’s popularity may not be as organic as intended, more rather the Horizon franchise feels more as an industry plant than a genuine fan favorite as its immense popularity and sales originated thanks largely due to console bundles.
Additionally, the fact that Sony’s PC games are now restricted in 177 countries raises concerns about their commitment to reaching a global audience, the very reason as to why they bothered to harass Japanese developers to incorporate censorship for the past eight years.
Instead of expanding their market, Sony seems content to extract as much additional value from the handful of franchises they’ve bothered to care for over the last decade while Killzone and countless other IPs lay abandoned.
At this point, Sony is beginning to resemble a parody of itself. Despite the lackluster launch of Concord, they are forging ahead with a Horizon-based multiplayer game already deep in development.
Furthermore, Sony has two additional live-service projects in development, Marathon and Fairgame$, but the outlook for these titles is far from promising. Given the current industry trends and Sony’s recent track record, it’s hard to see a bright future for these ventures. This has led many to speculate whether the company is intentionally burning through the substantial revenue generated by around 50 million active PlayStation Plus subscribers.
Sony’s own console architect, Mark Cerny more or less confirmed the growing threat of a potential games industry crash, driven by the increasingly prolonged development cycles that have only worsened since the arrival of 9th-generation consoles. These delays have been accompanied by ballooning budgets, with Sony’s first-party titles especially exceeding hundreds of millions in development costs, not even counting marketing expenses.
Sony’s recent actions only add to the confusion. Their decision to re-release Horizon Zero Dawn with a remaster appears to be a questionable strategy, either trying to push buyers into paying close to full price for a game that still feels modern or nudging existing owners to opt for a $10 upgrade.
Despite these efforts, initial sales figures reportedly show that Horizon Zero Dawn’s remaster may have only moved tens of thousands of units in total, with price points ranging between $10 and $50. Given these numbers, it’s highly unlikely Sony has managed to recoup its investment, not just for Horizon, but for other re-releases like Until Dawn as well.
