I think Sony's developers should switch to three-year development cycles. I mean developers like Guerrila Games, Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog and others that usually release games every two years. I think they should follow a three-year dev period now or at least for the PS4 and here's why:
The obvious benefit for switching to a three-year development period is the increased quality, polish, and features. A developer can do a lot with an extra year of developing time. With an extra year, a developer can add a tremendous amount of polish and tons of new feautures which would make releasing every two years redundant.
Some developers simply aren't cut out for making a game every two years. Take Guerrila Games for example and their most recent release: Killlzone 3. It was a great game and improved in many ways from its predecessor. The game had great potential, but lacked some essential features found and Killzone 2 like custom games. Guerrila is currently working hard to patch in some features that were already found in Killzone 2. I can only assume these features weren't found in Killzone 2 because of a lack of time. The game had a lot of potential, but just missed the mark in my opinion. With an extra year of dev time, the game could have been much better.
Even more skilled developers could benefit from more than two years to make their games. Take Naughty Dog and their most recent release: Uncharted 2. The game is held by many as the game of the generation. The game is often described as being flawless, perfect. However, Naughty Dog themselves said they ran out of time with the game when they were designing the multiplayer. If Uncharted was a three-year franchise instead of , the franchise would most likely be much bigger, critically and commercially. Well, maybe not critically so much, but commercially for sure.
I'm hoping Sony follows this method with the PS4. With an extra year of development, a game's potential of being a system mover is much greater. A franchise with potential like Killzone wouldn't be a Halo Killer, but it would be much bigger, possibly Uncharted level.
One of the disadvantages to Sony following a three-year development cycle is less exclusives per year. This would not be a problem when you consider the number of studios in Sony's wing. In the first party department, Sony has Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Media Molecule, Guerrila Games, Polphony Digital, Zipper and smaller developers like Evolution and team-ICO. There's also third parties that make exclusives for Sony like Insomniacs, Sucker Punch, Eat Sleep Play, and LightBox. Keep in mind that some of these studios work on multiple IP's at a time like Zipper and Insomniacs. Also keep in mind that many of these developers are creating new IP's along with their current ones: Sucker Punch, Guerrila Games, and Santa Monica. Also keep in mind exclusives from third party publishers like AGENT, FFV13, or the Yakuza series.
Some people like having a new release every two years because they would grow bored of the game if release cycles were longer. This most likely wouldn't be a problem. If you give a talented team three years to make the game, then they should be able to load the game with so much polish and content that you wouldn't grow bored of the game in two years.
Here can be a sample devlopment cycle for Sony's team of studios
-Year one: Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, Evolution,
-Year two: Guerrilla Games, Zipper, Media Molecule
-Year three: Santa Monica, Insomniacs, EatSleepPlay, LightBox
-Repeat
That may not seem like much now, but it's much better when you consider the fact that:
- Zipper and Insomniacs makes more than one game at a time
- GG, SM, and SP will be working on multiple games at a time
- Studios like Polphony Digital and team-ICO are a factor, however their dev time can exceed five years.
- third party exclusives like AGENT, FFv13, Yakuza, are are factor
- The future where Sony may purchase more studios or existing studios may grow to developing more than one game at a time.
if Sony uses it's studios effeciently, they can easily still have 3 - 4 BIG exclusives a year with a few smaller exclusives scattered throughout the year, and maybe a few third-party published exclusives. Sony could have maybe two big games during the holiday and a few games during the first half of the year.
I really hope Sony follows this pattern in the future. Many of their developers create games with a lot of potential, but just barely become the best that they could be. If Sony does follow this pattern, then it would be good for them and us gamers as when can get more quality games.
thoughts...
