The internet when Phil Spencer introduces Jim Ryan on the podcast today

Legendary.

"X-Station, coming 2027 for $649!"

Or it could be Playbox. Not sure which one I like more lol.

I take that back, we do know the budget for two UE5 games now.

Immortals of Aveum last year had a development budget of $85m (plus an additional $40m in marketing for $125m total). The studio that made the game took 5 years to make it and had just over 100 devs leading up to launch (small for a AAA dev team) and still the game cost $85m to make, so it doesn't really feel like UE5 automation helped much to cut down on either development time or development budget. The game flopped and Ascendant Studios laid off nearly half of their developers as a result of the flop.

Lords of the Fallen (reboot of the original) was also made in UE5 and cost $66m USD in combined development, marketing, and physical edition production budget, and they developed it in only about 3.5 years. Both figures are much lower than Immortals of Aveum, but the studio that made it, Hexworks, is in Europe, specifically in a region of Europe with lower cost of living and therefore lower developer pay, so you can't compare it directly with Ascendant Studio in high cost of living California where developers are paid alot more, resulting in a higher studio payroll factoring into the development budget.

What Shika said but I also think a lot of these claims about UE5 will be bullshit as well, no doubt it makes hiring easier but UE5 was hyped to the moon and so far...I'm not really that impressed by what I've seen from it, but it's not just the engine, it's that AAA nowadays requires thousands of employees over the entire course of development, that's thousands of salaries and in some locations, such as California, those salaries will cost a bomb. Then there's the constant push for every game to be bigger, bigger, bigger, there's the push for "must have better graphics than the last game!" and constantly trying to push the envelope on photorealistic graphics while also being a massive title.

Nintendo doesn't really have these issues, they're profitable across the board, Nintendo's profit margins are way better than Xbox and Sony's because firstly their hardware is profitable to a strong degree, secondly their games are profitable to a strong degree, Nintendo's budgets all appear to be modest on the AAA side and gamers haven't been conditioned to expect massive titles from Nintendo, or titles with photorealistic graphics, Nintendo also focuses firstly on the gameplay and I'd say graphics are a distant 3rd or 4th, nobody really cares for photorealism in a Nintendo title, nobody really cares that a Nintendo title isn't 60+ hours long but on Xbox/PS if you aren't both of those things then gamers rip you apart, Lol.

Hung up in every video game office

Publishers and Retailers: Survive 2024.

I mean, can anyone deny at this point there's a serious issue in the gaming industry.

Flat spending, no significant upside in players or hours growth, rising costs, stagnant hardware market.

The industry right now is relying on GTA 6 to 'save' it...Help us Take-Two.

Kind of funny and sad at the same time it's all on GTA's shoulders, Lol.

Boy, Take-Two better not delay it.

The games industry feels like it’s on the edge of collapse, which is wild after the great year that 2023 was.