Well for Square-Enix's case (getting back to the OP) for now and the forseeable future their goose is cooked. They're not going to be leading the industry in graphics or anywhere close given the sales (or lack thereof) they have. FF13 was on par with like GTAIV back in the day, but GTAVI is going to have several times the budget that future Final Fantasy games will get.
They probably realistically can't even afford to go much past FF7 Rebirth just based on sales reality, forget hardware this and that altogether.
A shrinking franchise that has a fanbase of old farts mostly in their late 30s/40s and is declining to maybe 4-5 million sales per installment is going to be hard pressed to even maintain $150 million budget range, let alone grow into $200 mill, $250 million, $300 million levels.
Graphics as a driving factor of sales in general I think is over for pretty much all Japanese developers. Nintendo is the only that can afford it and they don't care about photorealism, Capcom won't even spend to give Monster Hunter a proper generational leap, Square-Enix has this mess they're in, Sega is not gonna spend big money, Sony while technically a "Japanese company" they are cutting funding to their Japan studios so only a few of their Western teams get big money. Basically just leaves the Elden Ring guys.
Japanese games will still look fine because art style really is more important than technical features once you get past PS3-fidelity anyway but if you're looking to Japanese studios to push the performance envelope ... good freaking luck with that.
Last edited by Soundwave - on 16 May 2024
