AV_Gamer

@thepanzini: Glad it worked out for them, but I also noticed how the article ends with Insomiac pretty much saying "whoa we need to slow down some. No major releases anytime soon". Hope 2025 is another good year for them. I can certainly go on another adventure with Rivet and crew.

Yeah, the issue isn't the tech. The tech today is easier than it has ever been for developers to use. The issue is publishers they work for wanting bigger and bolder games to compete in the AAA space, which cost too much money, and the sales after the game is released don't turn a profit. Spider-Man 2 supposedly cost 300 million dollars to make, and despite it already being a big seller, it still hasn't gotten close to making back 300 million dollars. This is why Sony keeps whining about their games, despite them also selling millions. The latest one being Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which I personally got day one, and I'm sure many people here did too. Like someone in this thread already said, the answer might be to scale back, but these major companies are not going to do that. It's like how Elon Musk is losing money with Tesla for all kind of reasons, but he is still pushing the company full speed ahead. The only thing those people know how to do is go forward, and if things good bad, the ordinary people suffer, hence all the layoffs.

Nintendo seemed to have avoided this for the most part. A console with low tech, but with talented artist who still know how to make their first party games look pretty. And a dedicated fanbase who will buy anything Nintendo puts out, even if it's a Pokemon game with PS2 quality graphics. But we'll see what happens with the Switch 2.

The sad reality, is that gaming has become just like any other major institution and all the corruption that it details.

Yeah, we knew Sony was going to go about this whole Helldivers 2 thing in a bitter way after what happened. Instead of the big time guys doing the right thing, they find ways to be petty and screw people another way. And like Gertmann said, they eventually are still going to force a PSN requirement in the future, they are just looking for a more clever way to do it.

Overall, it's looking like gaming has gotten too big and too costly to sustain. And the fact a lot of corpo sharks are now running many aspects of the business, certainly doesn't help. Are we in for another gaming crash like in the early 80s? Maybe not, and this is mainly because of small studios keeping gaming alive through indies. But it's not looking good, and it's only going to get worse.

This is mainly the reasons Nintendo is still doing so well, despite having an underperforming console compared to the rest this generation. They still make excellent first party games you don't get anywhere else. The reason the Xbox360 was so successful for Microsoft, was one, Sony's hubris causing them to make foolish decisions with the PS3, and Microsoft having a great number of exclusives, and more importantly, them being able to keep it up throughout the generation.

The Series X is not outputting enough great games for people to care. In fact, most people who own a Series X/S, say the number one benefit is having access to Microsoft's full library of game thanks to Game Pass. But there is also PC Game Pass, and while you don't get the full Xbox library of games like on the console version, for most people, it's good enough. And now, thanks to these recent studio closings, the benefit of Game Pass is being put into doubt.

Sadly, I predict when Hell Blade 2 comes out, its not going to matter how well it does. It's still going to result in some negative outcome from Microsoft, and I believe at this point, they will slowly begin to go the way of Sega. They may still put out a console, but it will be more like a gaming PC, and none of their games will be exclusives anymore. Yes, Starfield and even Halo, Gears, and so on will become multiplatform.

Jeff Gerstmann and other gaming developers are pretty much echoing what I said in the beginning. The lesson is not to sell your developer studio to a big time publisher if you can help it. Sometimes all money isn't good money. Because like Jeff said, you can do everything right (in the case of Tango and Hi-Fi Rush) and still get screwed in the end. It's sad when everyone is now looking towards Hell Blade 2's release and how long it will take before Microsoft shuts that studio shutdown, regardless of how bad or good the game does.

And yeah, Spencer is going to come on with that "give me a break guys, gaming is hard" expression on his face, and sadly, people will once again give him a pass. It's all starting to get silly.

It wasn't. Phantasy Star IV for the Genesis/Mega Drive was $100, because the game used a lot of megabits and it showed. The same thing with Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. Most 16-bit games had between 8-16 megabits in them for data storage, which allowed developers more creativity. Anything higher usually made the game cost more than standard price, because carts were expensive to make. And of course there was the Neo-Geo and their games costing between $100 - $300, because those games had between 100 and 300 megabits in them.

Microsoft killing the studio that did Hi-Fi Rush right now is number one with a bullet for me. It's going to have to take something else catastrophic to replace that... but the year is still young.

Spencer is proof how much charm and charisma can go a long way. Everyone by this point knows he is not fit for the job of running the Xbox division at Microsoft, and perhaps never was. But he comes across as a very friendly and down to earth guy, who gets the gamers, in a "one of us" kind of way. Not some sleazy guy in a three-piece suit, when in reality, he is not much different. It's served him well.

Hopefully, it's a holiday release. The only thing I want from Nintendo is a more powerful Switch that is fully backwards compatible with the current Switch. No BS where you have to buy the exclusive Switch 2 re-release version of a Nintendo first party game in order to get the benefits of the game performing better. I stopped playing my Switch for the most part, because I can't stand the outdated performance of the current one. Which is the reason I didn't get Tears of the Kingdom, and they were charging $70. No, thanks. One of the great things about the PS5, was how a lot of PS4 games immediately performed better, whether the game now played at a perfect, smooth, 30FPS if the framerate was locked, to a buttery smooth 60FPS if the framerate was unlocked. And coming from a based PS4 like I did, the improvement was very noticeable. Days Gone was barely playable on the base PS4, but was great on the PS5, simply because of better framerate.

As far as price, if it's just an improved Switch that can now upscale to 4K, then it should be within the $400 range. But if Nintendo really goes all out and makes it like another Gamecube, then I can see it being in the $500 range.