shanbcn said:
What? Industry will die if 3rd party keep ignoring Wii? |
Essentially yes.
The development budgets of the HD games are insane and pretty much unsustainable. Last year the average loss of a game developer was $200 million, mind you: in an absolute record breaking year for the video game industry. Something's going wrong here.
Metal Gear Solid is a game that usually should be able to keep Konami happy for about a year, because it's their #1 franchise. Right now it's doubtful it even made a profit. Be aware that a title of that magnitude needs a very high return on investment.
And that's an AAA title. Ask the guys behind stranglehold if they like the current budgets that are needed to make a PS360 game. Hell even Sony itself is suffering from their own leap forward. Their userbase is far to small to allow for several mega projects.
All this wouldn't have been a problem if HD gaming really took off, but at the moment it doesn't look like that will happen. If these companies keep ignoring Wii they're bound to suffer major losses. Wii will have around 50% marketshare in December and around 45 million consoles, yet a lot of developers don't want to develop for it, for reasons I don't understand.
