I want my games to have $40 million budgets, not $200 million budgets.  

Pokemon feels kind of absurd because it's one of the biggest IPs in gaming, and it's costing 1/10-1/20 of what some big PlayStation/Xbox games cost. Pokemon should cost twice as much, and Uncharted 4 should cost 1/5th as much.  

I'm kind of kidding. There's not actually an exact number that I want budgets to be. I just want budgets to be optimized. Some games really need to have huge budgets, and that's okay. But it really feels like some games don't. 

Like is there a good reason for Uncharted 4 to cost 10x more than Uncharted 2? I personally think Uncharted 2 is a better game overall. And it just kinds of ends up feeling like a lot of this budget goes to things that don't actually enhance the experience as much. 

For a lot of people, there feels like a mismatch. Huge budgets are going to a smaller and smaller number of games, and people don't seem to generally think of the PS5 generation as the best ever. A lot of people point to PS1, PS2, PS3 as some of the best generations ever. We're seeing less variety in the AAA bucket, and the AA bucket which would normally make up for that lack of variety seems like it's shrinking even faster.  

It feels like a lot of huge budgets are going to things that don't really impact the player. I don't think the improvement to graphical and animation quality is really turning out to be the best use of budget anymore.  And all the other reasons these games are costing so much more.  

With some of the Pokemon games it really has felt like the budget has held them back. There are frequently complaints about the games being on the weaker side visually. 

Overall, it's not that I want all game budgets to be small. I want a range of experiences, and I think the budgets should make sense for what those experiences are.  

If you're making a super amazing 400 hour RPG, I personally wouldn't be surprised or disappointed if it cost $400 million. But if you're making a linear 15 hour title, I would say it probably shouldn't cost $200 million. And I would wonder why you did that.

I understand your premise, but I dont think you noticed that your example is the opposite of the  point that you are trying to make. Nintendo incresed the budget on MKW bc they took a new direction on the franchise and making open world would be a lot time consuming for the devs.

So it doesnt matter the budget for an exciting new idea for gaming, bc as you pointed out Nintendo took a risk on one of their top franchises while many other companies would feel it is not worth and will play safe only focusing their dev spends on the graphics department.

It is all about the creative freedom on the development team and their will to make things work no matter the price

Even a high-budget Nintendo game is far below other games AAA budgets.

The point is:

Rising their spends for new exciting, but demanding, gameplay ideas

VS

Rising their spends only for pushing the graphics, longer high quality cutscenes, VA and many others cinematic shenanigans 

With Vampire Survivors at 5 euro giving 60 hours of pure addiction. Clair obscur hitting in at mid budget and been the best game of the year. Khazan being 20 less that AAA price and in my top three of the year. Yes. I want more focused AA games with smaller teams and more TLC if they have the talent. The only AAA game I paid for at the full 79,99 in the last year (not that there is many) that I haven't felt guilty about was DS2, that game felt like it was worth more. Yotei, as to what I'm playing now (trying to at least) just does not feel like it deserves that 79,99 tag, few games do. Only one on my radar is GTA6 and there is nothing else anytime soon that'll be getting me in day one unless it's a sub 59,99 game or preferrably 49,99 like Clair Obscur, I only paid 44,99 for CO E33 and it still feels like I swindled the studio, like I should buy the game once more or something.

Gamers want games made by smaller management.
Games with a vision instead of made by committee.
Games directed by an auteur instead of directed by the marketing department.
Games made with passion instead of churned out for quarterly revenues or maintaining subscription counts.

I guess that works better with lower budgets since high budgets mean a lot of stakeholders pushing their own ideas. It can also work with high budgets like Death Stranding (2) but you need someone with a clear vision, a director who pretty much dictates how the game should be.

It is always easier with a small team. The higher the budget, the more people, the more voices, the more feature creep and bloat. But if you have the right person at the helm, big budgets can produce wonderful games. Also wonderfully decisive games. Still better than bland one size fits all games.

I feel like it's been diminishing returns for a good while now. There should be little reason for most games to cost much more than 8th gen games. The 8th gen already offered visuals that most people ought to be happy enough with good visual design, and gameplay-wise, little has happened since the 7th gen when open world games became a huge thing.

Not for $80 + DLC.

I'm quite happy playing big budget games at discounted prices perhaps a year after release. I must admit I don't care so much about improved graphics. I'm happy to play older games with inferior graphics however what I would like to see more of is more advanced gameplay mechanics so the games feel more interesting to play. More advanced engines with improved gravity and weather patterns. More AI in characters and game worlds that seem like they are a real place. It feels like graphic quality has gone up but game engines aren't advancing at the same level. I like the idea of playing a game of Skyrim where the characters all have their own lives and do different stuff on different days. When you see AI injected into old games like Skyrim it looks fantastic when you get more realistic conversations etc. I also would like to see games evolve more. So you might have Skyrim or Fallout 4 upgraded each year and you pay a price for the upgrade rather than a completely new game. Maybe games could be more modular and those modules get upgraded at different times.

I would say it depends on the title. It works for most platformers. Psychonauts 2 is a prime example. Though to be fair, I don’t think they could have made it without being acquired but it had a similar budget to the Pokémon games in question.