Sony is shutting down Firewalk, the studio behind its live-service flop, Concord. It’s the biggest, most expensive casualty of an increasingly crowded hero shooter market – and it won’t be the last • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here It’s official: after Sony pulled its struggling hero shooter Concord from sale shortly after it launched, the studio that made it will now be closing. Firewalk Studios was bought by Sony less than two years ago, as part of a strategy to improve PlayStation’s live-service portfolio. The closure of Firewalk cements Concord’s place as one of the biggest and most consequential flops in gaming history: the cost to Sony will have been in the hundreds of millions, with estimates of Concord’s development cost ranging from $200m to $400m in total. Sony also closed Neon Koi, a developer with offices in Helsinki and Berlin, which focused on “mobile action games with epic stories” but had yet to release a game. Continue reading...

Extra £300 on a Digital Edition PS5 buys an upgraded graphics processing unit and an 8K mode on enhanced games After months of rumours and speculation, Sony has finally revealed the PlayStation 5 Pro console, an update to its current machine, offering enhanced technical specifications and a 2TB solid state drive for £699/$699. It is launching on 7 November, with pre-orders beginning on 26 September. It is an expensive machine compared with current systems, coming in at £300 more than the Digital Edition PlayStation 5, which retails at £390. It’s also digital only: if you want to play games or movies on Blu-ray discs, you’ll have to add a Blu-ray player for an extra £100. Continue reading...