So with the power next generation systems can publishers and developers afford to support the new hardware. THQ stated last year that any leap in power comparable to last generation would mean THQ would need to charge 100$ retail to break even at current retail sales. Several developers stated that Dev costs are likely going to double or even triple. But the current economic conditions in Europe and America are not sufficient to sell games at 100$ each. If games do have to retail at that price I cannot see people buying any newer untested games. Many games will flop even some of the best games will flop. So we saw what happened at the beginning of this generation. When PS3 launched smart developers and publishers stayed away if they did not have IP incapable of flopping. Publishers like Atari, Majesco etc...etc.. did not support PS3 for years. In fact Midway had the guts to try and survive on Ps3 and bit the dust. Acclaim died right around the time the new generation was starting. With the recent announcement from Sega that they are downsizing and that they are cutting some of the budgets.

Stupid phone cut me off.

Sega is making cuts, THQ is struggling cutting staff and even their major new high quality IP can they afford to make the jump without charging 100$ a copy. Majesco is still struggling and relying on lower budget hardware. Atari is never going to be able to support new expensive hardware.

Even big publishers like UbiSoft will be in trouble. If Dev costs double even some of UbiSofts best selling games will barely break even. WarnerBros will even be in trouble in many instances so would Disney.

I can't think of many publishers and developers that can afford to sell games at 79.99$ if Dev costs double let alone triple. Only a few IP are strong enough to be guaranteed successful. But new IP would be severely risky!

This is why devs need to cash in on the huge used games market.
Implement an online-pass on every one of your games and you won't need to charge more than $60.

play the witcher 2, it is one of the best looking games of all time.
small company made it.

You dont need a good looking game.

Not if Sony has anything to do with it.
They are daft enough to release a £700 console that no one can programme games for.

Rol the question isn't will they the question is can they?

Which publishers can afford to develop software at double the Dev costs. Even if they raise retail prices it will be nearly impossible to turn a profit and breaking even will still be difficult. The economy is not strong and even though consumers would love those new games they will not buy them.

I just saw Silicon Knights interview in which it was predicted that soon their will only be five or six publishers on earth. These publishers will be the only ones capable of making a profit on new games. In dependant studios and all of the smaller publishers will die. I heard a year ago from a guy in the gaming press that shared that view. He said that in the near future Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, EAGames, Activision and UbiSoft will be the only publishers he predicted that another publisher might survive in Japan but predicted Japanese publishers will either fold or merge in the future as Dev costs spiral out of control.

I have heard predictions that further in the future even fewer publishers will survive.

I don't know about you but I do not want that future. I might not have loved Midway or Acclaim but I still enjoyed playing some of their games. Atari wasn't my favorite publisher but when they had to close most of their internal studios I lost the opportunity to play some of their games.

The industry cannot afford to lose any more publishers or developers. People love the games that are on the chopping blocks they love the studios going under they love the publishers. We should not allow the industry to continue to collapse!

I blame Sony.

There almost definitely will be a bigger focus on digital downloads, and if SONY, Microsoft and Nintendo make their stores more open (like steam), the middle man gets cut out and more studios won't need publishers. Cheaper to distribute and bigger profits for developers.

If the stores don't become more open, you'll see the mid-tier developers either close down or move to PC. Either way, we will still get creative, cool, interesting games and new IPs, we may just have to find them on a different and to many a completely alien platform, the PC.

Gamedevs didn't wanted to create games for Saturn/Playstation because that would be way to expensive. Gamebudgets surpassing 1 million $ no way! 5 years ago half of vgchartz believed that gamedevs would stop creating games for the HD systems because they would go all bankrupt...Now we have months filled with games X_X! Every generation it is the same stuff.