Third Party Devs have made up their minds about the Wii.

[NJ5]

Arius Dion said:

NJ5 said:

mibuokami said:
^It sounds so simple when you explain it... so I'm sitting here scratching my head wondering: Why isn't budget curbed and development asset shifted to a much more lucrative market? Why isn't this done? Company obviously wants to make money, and if the solution is so simple that any logical thinking person draw the conclusion within minutes in a debate on an internet forum, wouldn't somebody out their make the same realization?

I just can't see it in my head. It can't be that simple, otherwise every half-wit could become CEO of Activision and become the next Steve Job.

It's the nature of an arms race between publishers. They don't want their games to look worse than the competition's, so they will invest a lot of money on making awesome PS3/360 graphics even without being sure that they'll be able to make a profit.

They realize that it's risky, but they also realize that many hardcore gamers and the industry will pound on them and probably not buy their games if they tone down graphics a lot.

Essentially they're doing what they have to do in order to keep satisfying their target market. This is how you set up the industry for a crash.

 

Would you say the industry is on this exact path, now?

 

They've been on this path for several generations. Development costs increasing exponentially (doubling each generation, at least).  Does the gaming market grow exponentially? No. So expenses have been rising faster than revenues for a long time.

Nintendo broke the trend by launching a console with comparatively little improvement in graphics. But apparently the industry is not interested in supporting this model.