Iwata: Wii U game delays, "projects were understaffed"

[mjk45]

DaRev said:

_crazy_man_ said:

DaRev said:
It's funny how people in here claiming that Nintendo has misunderstood or underestimated time and budget needed to develop HD games. But isn't this one of the reason why Nintendo didn't make the Wii HD in the first place, i.e. that they felt that HD game development would be too expensive?

Too expensive at the time, tho its years later.  Now its just a thing of adjusting staff and time (still more money but not as much as it used to be).

Maybe, but, if I understand you correctly, I think development could be more expensive now, especially for Nintendo, than it was 6 years ago - considering that its all new to them. Some developers like Ubisoft that have already been developing HD games it should be a norm by now for them. Plus I think Iwata is right in that this HD age calls for higher game sales in order for you to stay in business - just look at the fallout regarding the latest Square and other 3rd party games.  I think Iwata's right in that it costs more today to be sucessful at game development, from begining to end.

If I recall correctly Iwata stated that the main reason not to go HD at the time was the same used for not investing more in online they felt it was to early and it was best to wait till the adoption rate reached a point where it made sense to them that thinking can help you short term but may hinder you longer term especially if the pick up rate is faster than you anticipated and instead of entering the market at what should be seen as the right time with the advantage of having your rivals do a lot of the early work , you are seen as being behind and playing catch up.

about the  cost aspect Iwata is right you have higher costs but you also have larger sales especially on your big games , another factor is increased dlc and digital sales , the thing about Square and the subsequent fallout  is to me more about greed , you take a game that historically and especially lately sells around the 1.5 - 2 mill mark average , one that's happens to be a second reboot and then you estimate it to sell 5 mill plus even though Uncharted  with the full weight of Sony behind it plus bundling takes several years to get to 5 mill and beyond,  it doesn't mean it wasn't very profitable it just means they got greedy.

It reminds me of the damage done to healthy company's when unrealistic growth estimates  by bonus hungry execs where  pushed even if it was unsustainable and  afterwards despite a nice growth rate being achieved it was seen as poor in the chase for more and more growth.