Shuhei Yoshida: Only Four Out of Ten PlayStation Games Make Money, but Sony Will Always Support Talent

[DonFerrari]

impertinence said:

DonFerrari said:

impertinence said:

By 'AAA' I mean cutting edge technical games, if you want to use 'AAA' to mean 'top tier games' then sure, there will always be some games that are bigger and more expensive than others. What I call the 'AAA model' though is the current structure where developers and publishers chase technological benchmarks in a quest to produce the most technically advanced games they can and use that as a selling point. For a reference, see the retarded resolution wars currently going on for example.

The problem with this model is that costs are outpacing the gains in the customer base. The customers are already balking at increasing the price for the product and the growth in customer base is very slow (I would say it's even declining). Of course, cost of development will go down over time for the same assets, but if you want to be on the cutting edge, the cost will only continue to grow. This model is unsustainable and the lack of insight into this simple fact in the industry has already caused a lot of harm. 

I understand your point, but buying cost have reduced. Price tag have been the same 60 for like 20 years even tough inflation would double the price so in fact we are paying less.

So you don't understand my point, or you do understand my point? When production cost goes up, but real price for the end product goes down (price at $60 for 20 years like you erronously claim) then the only way to sustain the model is to continue to grow the customer base, which is not happening. To capture more consumers games have to be brought to new platforms, but the price level on mobile is already set extremely low and no one will be able to sustain production budgets of $20 million and more and then sell the game for $5.

We already have companies complaining that games that sold 600 000 copies underperformed, that is a huge red flag to me.

And what AAA game is releasing on mobile for 5 bucks?