Games price, value and perception

[The_Liquid_Laser]

My view on this is that Western AAA publishers are the enemy.  I do not like the short-sighted direction they've been taking gaming to and it is still headed in that direction.  What is that directoion?  High cost.

High cost is not a bug.  It's a feature.  At least for AAA Western publishers, cost is a feature.  They want smaller publishers to go out of business.  That reduces their competition.  Activision and EA can survive just fine in the high cost environment.  Small and medium size developers cannot.  And then costs get so high that they have to increase game prices.

We are at a point where most third party games are either 1) made by big publishers or 2) made by indie developers.  Back during Generations 5 and 6 there were a lot more mid-sized developers.  Today, the middle seems mostly gone.

The simple solution to this problem is Nintendo.  Nintendo has been the main spoiler to the high cost strategy since Generation 7.  Nintendo has been providing viable platforms for mid size developers.  I also think it is a better platform for indie studios.  If I were part of an indie or mid-size development team, I would make all of my games Nintendo platform exclusive.  Get out of the high cost, graphics race that can't possibly be won by smaller devs anyway.  And on the consumer side, well I am a consumer.  And I highly recommend fully supporting Nintendo platforms.  Nintendo is definitely not perfect, but I think they are actually trying to advance gaming.  While AAA Western studios are the enemy and they also hate Nintendo.

Gaming has a viable future lead by Nintendo.  It does not have a viable future lead by Western AAA studios.  And for now, the average Switch game is cheaper than the average PS5 game.