Are western developers too ambitious? They release three to five entries of the same game franchise within a single generation. I think this causes brand fatigue and compromises on quality. When japanese devs try this, the results are terrible (Final Fantasy XIII, Lost Planet).

Nintendo usually releases one entry for its key franchises on each home console. Lots of content, very stable, very polished and lasts for a few years. Could western studios adopt this concept in a sustainable way?

Take DICE. Personally I was very happy with Bad Company 2 and didnt even flinch when Battllefield 3 released. Skipped it entirely, B4 somes out (relatively soon) and the rest is history. I foolishly fell into the next gen/levolution hype (P.S. I havent seen a single building collapse >_>). The game is good, but it needed more time. The brand has been hurt and Battlefield 5 will be a tough sell when it emerges.

Now imagine if a dev like Bioware only released Mass Effect 1 last generation, supporting it with DLC and free updates. Imagine if Mass Effect 2 was an XBox One launch title with 8th gen visuals, multiplayer and 3 to 4 times the content of ME2 right out of the box because of a much longer development cycle. Apply this to any franchise you feel is being milked to death?

Apply the same logic to Gears of War, 4 games for a new IP in one gen. Uncharded 3 or better yet the Last of Us being held back as 8th gen launch juggernauts.

Would this be profitable? Would you welcome this? How do you feel about these frequent releases? Imagine a new Mario Kart/Zelda/ every 2 to 3 years? Would they hold up, would they be as prized and covetted? I think not.

I feel the inevitable Fallout 4 will blow peoples minds because its been forever since we saw 3. Elder Scrolls VI is probably a few years away but I feel it'll have a similar effect.

Opinions? If not one game per gen, what's the acceptable padding, 3 years? 4?

I really don't understand where all these extra funds are going into... Development costs are higher than before yet the games are lower in overall quality when it comes to polish as well as other things... There are obviously exceptions but majority of them are just like wtf...

Could you rename the thread, calling a region "western" sounds a bit strange given that we have known for a while now that the earth is round (not flat) so if you keep going est or west you will eventually reach whatever parallel you are talking about... and not everyone is located in the same region as you... + sometimes going east or west to reach a place is the same distance... etc.

Thanks

I am 97% a single player gamer, so for me, I'm happy as long as there is at least two years between development time for single player games. This prevents me from getting fatigued with the series and gives the developer a good amount of time to improve on the original.

Two years is the absolute minimum though, otherwise I will normally wait half a year and get the game cheap, or not bother entirely if a franchise goes annual

American devs?

Deep.

The worst thing in gaming is waiting a gen to play a trilogy.

It takes to long to play a squeal, they need to speed up dev make games at the same time whatever. ND can managed 4 awesome games released in 7 years, other devs should learn form them.

One ME a gen would utterly suck ass.

I wand a trilogy on Uncharted or MEffects level in 3 years, waiting is a joke.

It works for some games and not for others.

Ok... 2 different topics here.

First, the reason why Japanese teams dont pump out more games is because they use a less efficient working structure. They had and some still have the habit that when you make a new game, you also make a new engine from the ground up. Western devs completely skip that step for the most part and use a licensed engine or have a single engine for the whole company.

The issue of pumping out sequals is different. From a business point of view it makes perfect sense. But, it makes little sense as a strategic decision.
It will create IP fatigue and will funnel most of the resources into an IP wich is a walking time-bomb. A less one-direction view of the company will let you realise that in the long term, its best to foster several IP's to lean on than a single one until exhaustion.

Imagine Ubi-soft. If Assasins suddenly loses popularity and sales plumet to below a million... what does Ubi have left? That dance game? Splinter Cell died off, the divison will probably not be a huge sucess, and definitly not the crew or Rayman. Will watch dogs sell more than 2 millions? Can it be sustained?
Ubi soft is one example of this problem. When AC dies, their revenue dies with them and that bubble will burst. Activision would be in the same boat when CoD dies out. They still got Blizzard, but what else do they got from the Activision side? Spiderman games? Not exactly big sucesses.

Those two companies are walking time bombs. Ubi atually tries to do something on the side with games like Watch Dogs because they have a long time CEO ahead of the company. But the likes of Activision is a type of company that is used to gain fame. CEO's in the US hop between companies frequently. While they are there they make whatever they can to have big profits, even if at the cost of long term viability (What do they care? They will be gone and in another big company by the time things go down where they can repeat the same), wich comes at the cost of development teams and studios as soon as their games are complete and they dont think the next one will make a huge profit in an exponetial rate.

I went a bit off-track, but the point is: Yes, doing yearly installments is risky and creates IP fatigue or death. No, doing 3 installments a gen is not a terrible move. A 2-3 year cycle is actually acceptable.

Well... lately, games developed by western big studios need to sell more than 3 million copies in order to give them some profit.

Tomb Raider only started to profit many months after its release, and only when the new consoles versions were launched.

Other games, like Hitman 3, Sleeping Dogs, didn´t break even, at least.

So, yeah... they really should review their production process and costs, the frequency of certain franchises launches. Maybe a 2-3 year cycle would be better for any big franchise, and in the meantime they could work on a new, different game, making room for players to try new things