This. I'd be highly surprised if the PS4 managed to beat the Wii over there, even if it surpasses it globally.

I'm pretty sure it is just marketing speak to be honest. If it were more than that then we would have more PS4 games period. I could just be a skeptical hardass cause I bought a PS3 when they first announced TLG, or maybe it's cause I thought their portable would get more support based on their PR about how many titles they had in development but either way I'm tired of PR and will await the actual titles from now on.    

Being better than the trainwreck of the PS3's initial dev kits is good.  Even after people came to grasp with PS3 development 3-4 years in title development was still long and expensive. Even in cases where PS3 was lead version.    

Yes and no. Discontinuing production is either a good thing or a bad thing depending. If you look at the DS to 3Ds transition, sales of the DS have drastically slowed and most people have upgraded to the 3DS. However, you look at the ps2 which had a very long shelf life and had tonnes of sales after the ps3 released and you wonder if maybe nintendo should have tried a bit more with the wii to get better sales. I expect the ps3 with its blueray and large catalogue of games to continue selling well after the ps4 has established itself which provides an additional revenue stream. 

I doubt MS will succeed in Japan. They tried harder in the x360 gen and failed. I really dont see anything unless they get an exclusive FF or Monster Hunter or some such that will change gamers minds. 

wait... so ur tellin me that the Cell was easier than PC like architecture they have now?

Maybe they are just making new engines? Certainly seems more likely. Playstation has always started slowly, at least this time they are filling the gap with indies.

I don't see PS4 cracking 100 million either. Console gaming certainly seems to be healthier globally than it is in Japan but smartphones and tablets will still have their effect and cause gen 8 to have far less sales than gen 7, including PS4 not beating out the Wii. But it won't be the lowest selling number 1 console globally because that title will stay with SNES.

A lot of the potential entry level gamers (6-10 year olds) will be begging their parents for smart phones, or rather tablets. Tablets in particular are getting a major boost with kids because a lot of schools are going to tablet based learning for at least part of the time. Imagine a non-gaming parent being told to get a tablet for their kid for school and the kid asking for a console too. The parent will say there's plenty of games on the tablet, and the kid will discover many games they will have a lot of fun with on their tablet. Tablets are not the death of console gaming globally, but that have stopped the growth.

It heavily depends upon what Development Environment they made their games in.  If it's something like Unity or Unreal then it really isn't different at all. If using a custom engine then yes it might be very different.  

So then why are they delaying games?  If it's easier shouldn't they should still be able to make those engines faster? In the case of Sony games in particular they are both sequels. They should have had from the get go a pretty good idea of what they needed the engines to do. The only real answer is that it's not actually any easier. By easier they probably just mean the tools help facilitate their ideas better or the implement their ideal  workflow better. That would make it easier but it doesn't change the massive amounts of work and time that you have to be put in to build and engine irrespective of architecture.  

Well, Nintendo has been delayings game and they have had a year in,  conversely PS4 has been on the market for 6 month.

The fact that ISS and KZSF are sequels is basically irrelevant considering, both games basically use custom engines that haven't been used for the previous entries.

At least for ISS and Driveclub the reasons for delay are obvious, they are making higher quality assets, which take a signifcantly longer time to make than anything else in game development.

Development Architecture is irrelevant if you are making 1080p assets rather than 720 p assets.

Ease of Development increases what developers can do and how fast they can do it, but it also increases the quality and amount of assets that needs to be created.

In other words, more work for artists, writers, musicians, and all the other non technical people. Hence Delays, as the industry adjusts.

One of the biggest complaints with Reviewers about ISS is that its story was weak compared to its predecessors. Thats a problem of being easier to develop for.

edit: being able to do more, means that you actually have to do more.

Nintendo is experiencing the pains many developers faced during the 7th gen. It's their first time building games on this type of technology and they have a lot to learn and I don't think anyone would say it's been a swift lesson.  

It's very relevant.  They've done multiple games of the same type already.  It gives them goals and specifics in what they need to aim for this engine to accomplish. It cost far more to make UE in which you can make any kind of game than to make Gears of War in particular.  

I don't agree that being able to do more means that you have to.  I think most of the industry just can't compete on making appealing games so they spend money on graphics to differentiate on a few gameplay concepts.    

Japanese developers and any B tier sized game  companies have't been able to absorb these costs as it is.  This is a problem irrespective of how much easier PS4 is to develop for.  More work but same revenue is a bad recipe.  Many of the Japanese developers have found success by moving to handhelds and mobile where costs are lower.  

You're catching on, but you're a bit confused.

Asset Creation is typically what drives up the development costs of games and is typically what seperates indies, AA, and AAAs. KH 1.5 is the perfect example, its a remake of an already existing game, but because they lost most of KH1s assets, the process of remaking assets for 1080p took quite a while.

So just because they know how to make the game doesn't mean they can easily make the HD assets.

I mean, Indies are making games for the PS4, maybe these japanese developers should stop over exerting themselves like Capcom and SE.

Thus, Ease of Development (specifically programming) means more can be done, and if more is done then it will take longer.

This is ridiculous.  I can rip the models and textures from KH.  Open 3DS Max or Maya and up the iterations to smooth it out or add turbo smooth. 

They are so much more far behind than I could have ever imagined.