Xbox co-creator on how the pressure of AAA is destroying Gaming.

[Arius Dion]

RolStoppable said:

nitekrawler1285 said:

Are you sure that even hardware can enforce such a cap?  To me it seems much like the Wii in that the reason big publishers haven't tried to simply outspend everyone is because they don't feel it would be worth the return on investment on Nintendo platforms.  They just decided to spend more money on PS360 games instead.  Or mobile in the case of the publishers that would have been releasing handheld games.  

I was also under the impression that though Nintendo did save a lot of money developing some of it's games for the Wii but that the advertising was far larger than normal. I'm not sure if marketing and advertising are included in costs here but I would imagine that even in a development environment such as the one you described if there is much competition that advertising costs might be inflated to get the needed attention to your title to be successful.  

It really seems like capping budgets is only something that the management or producers of studios themselves or the publishing entities can really dictate.  

Yes, I am sure. It worked in past generations, after all. The big publishers weren't able to raise the expectations for production values to a level where others couldn't compete at all anymore. And if the development budgets are kept under control, then marketing doesn't need to break the bank either. After all, it's not necessary to sell a huge amount of copies to be profitable.

Of course, today the industry has already gone too far, hence why the problem becomes clear to an increasing number of gamers whereas five to seven years ago the rising development budgets were usually brushed off as a non-issue. Since the industry has already gone too far, it's now the responsibility of publishers to cut down on budgets voluntary, yes. But third parties are irresponsible, so they will keep pouring insane amounts of money into a select few games which is as good as suicide, unless they find a huge source of new income (which doesn't seem likely at this point).

It's kinda like speed limits on streets. If people at large were driving responsibly, then we wouldn't need speed limits. But since that is not the case, somebody has to keep watching and enforce rules. In the video game business, that police would be the console manufacturers. They need to keep things in check (hence the licensing model that everyone began to use after the NES, because the American video game crash was caused by third parties), because if they spiral out of control, then pretty much everyone will suffer. Console manufacturers, game makers and gamers. In that sense, putting out ever more powerful consoles is like giving free cocaine to drug addicts; it's further enabling the madness of third parties who all try to be the last man standing and thus inherit the market share of their competitors.

Perhaps this is what needs to happen, in order for this industry to have a 'reset' The way things are now are unsustainable. 

I fear those that dismiss this cycle of exploding dev costs are going to be in for a rude awakening when/if console gaming crashes. It crashed before it can crash again. This gen there is no Wii to hide behind.