Nintendo, MS, Square welcome us to the era of fewer big video games. AAA slowdown has begun

[Johnny Awesome]

2023

NINT 97 90 Pikmin 4
NINT 96 84 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
NINT 94 88 Metroid Prime Remastered
NINT 92 91 Super Mario Bros. Wonder
SONY 90 89 Marvel's Spider-Man 2
MSFT 87 88 Hi-Fi Rush
MSFT 84 88 Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
NINT 84 84 Super Mario RPG
MSFT 84 73 Forza Motorsport
NINT 83 81 Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp
MSFT 83 69 Starfield
*MSFT 82 81 The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom
SONY 82 64 MLB The Show 23

*GaaS

Most of the top 1st party games of 2023 were not GaaS games. Just more GaaSlighting by gaming journalist looking for clicks.

If DLC = GaaS, then maybe Forza and Starfield should qualify. They'll probably get DLC for many years, unlike something like Cyberpunk 2077 which really just got the one expansion and that was it.

This year so far we really just have Helldivers 2 (GaaS) and Hellblade 2.

 

[Cyan]

Nintendo president admits game development now taking longer as hardware advances

Nintendo president admits game development now taking longer as hardware advances

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has explained to investors that games are now taking more time and more resources to develop and that is impacting development times. However, he says to remedy…

mynintendonews.com

 

[orangpelupa]

it may add credence to the rumor that Switch 2 was delayed to make it have more launch titles.

anyway, if Satoru Iwata was still alive, he probably will have a "ask iwata" article on nintendo website, doing deep dives. i miss him and his iwata asks

 

[Seanspeed]

2023

NINT 97 90 Pikmin 4
NINT 96 84 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
NINT 94 88 Metroid Prime Remastered
NINT 92 91 Super Mario Bros. Wonder
SONY 90 89 Marvel's Spider-Man 2
MSFT 87 88 Hi-Fi Rush
MSFT 84 88 Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
NINT 84 84 Super Mario RPG
MSFT 84 73 Forza Motorsport
NINT 83 81 Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp
MSFT 83 69 Starfield
*MSFT 82 81 The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom
SONY 82 64 MLB The Show 23

*GaaS

Most of the top 1st party games of 2023 were not GaaS games. Just more GaaSlighting by gaming journalist looking for clicks.

If DLC = GaaS, then maybe Forza and Starfield should qualify. They'll probably get DLC for many years, unlike something like Cyberpunk 2077 which really just got the one expansion and that was it.

This year so far we really just have Helldivers 2 (GaaS) and Hellblade 2.

All the top ones and a few others are Nintendo games, who do not suffer from the AAA production cost issues. If you narrow things down to 'blockbuster type AAA games', things look a lot worse.

I still think there's just huge inefficiencies going on in game development nowadays, though. It makes no sense at all how budgets have ballooned to the level they have. Marketing costs nowadays cost more than AAA games of 10 years ago all on their own! And frankly, I think we need less dreamers and more realists at lead positions of these studios, ones with solid, achievable visions from the get-go, so everybody is largely on the same page from the outset.