Former Playstation boss reveals the dev cost of AAA games is almost double on PS5 compared to PS4

[Zkuq]

Tober said:

We have heard this comment many times before, but never an explanation on the why? Sure there is inflation, but something else must be going on.

I have a theory. I think it could be related to ever increasing file size. It's easier for 1 man to carry a brick up on a mountain path, then 1000 men carry an elephant. Or perhaps a better analogy, the difference between carrying a piece of wood compared to a piece of gold of the same size, but different weight.

With ever increasing file sizes, simply handling the amount of data becomes an issue to itself. (Re-) Compiling data takes longer after changes to software including bugfixes, So the total file needs to be split in ever smaller pieces to make it manageable. This than causes a higher risk of issues when those pieces are put back together again. File size does not only increase due to a larger scope of the game, but also due to higher res objects and such.

So I'm not arguing games get bigger, but arguing they are getting heavier in a way.

I don't think this is the case at all. However, I think file size kind of demonstrates why higher quality means possibly even an unproportional amount of extra work: If you double the dimensions of a texture, the perceived quality is probably about twice as high, but the amount of detail is actually four times as much. Now it's probably not four times the work, but you get the point: Doubling the 'quality' takes more than double the detail, which is bound to have an effect on the amount of work required. (For 3D, it's mathematically even worse.)