| HappySqurriel said: Just because they have that many games that are unreleased doesn't mean that they have that many games that have full internal development teams working on them at any point in time ... Many software projects (including videogames) tend to have long periods of planning and intital set up which requires a lot of work from a few members of the team and almost no work from most members of a team; and there is often a long period at the end of a project which is centered around testing and debugging (and localization in the case of videogames) which will, once again, require a lot of work from a few members of the team and almost no work from most members of a team. Good management will try to complete the planning stage of a project just as the testing and debugging stage of another project begins in order to keep employee downtime to a minimum. On top of this, there are a wide variety of reasons why a company would choose to outsource work that they can, and it is possible that High Voltage has choosen to outsource some of its work.
Now, there is lots of evidence that supports that the Wii requires smaller development teams to work for less time to produce a game that is similar in scope to HD console games. All I am saying is that the size of the company and the number of unreleased games don't demonstrate that. |
Perhaps better than looking at the number of concurrent projects is to look at the release schedule.
Leaving aside licensed and WiiWare projects, HVS is expecting to release Gladiator in Q1 2010, and Grinder in Q4 2010. With Conduit coming at the end of Q2 2009, HVS is releasing a core Wii game every 9 months while continuing to develop licensed and WiiWare projects with a team of 150.
Compare that with a similarly-sized HD developer like Infinity Ward. Like HVS, they too are making games with their own custom engine, but they're not creating different kinds of gameplay or IPs with it. They're taking two years to make a sequel to Modern Warfare while refining existing mechanics and most likely re-using some art assets. Their job will be somewhat complicated by publishing on multiple platforms, though.
Your point about outsourcing stands, though I haven't seen any evidence that either studio outsources development. Nevertheless, you have to admit that the contrast is pretty dramatic.
"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event." — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.
