I have a feeling that gamers have come to expect large, cinematic experiences. Probably because the big companies just keep giving them more of that. Halo and Call of Duty and Resident Evil and Uncharted and The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls... Everything is just more dramatic, more cinematic, and bigger better badder. I can't say I agree with this. In fact, out of all the aforementioned games, the only ones I'm interested in are Beyond: Two Souls (Simply because I loved Heavy Rain) and RE6. I've been playing Resident Evil since the beginning, and while I don't agree with the direction the series is going -- more action, less survival horror-- It's still featuring some of my favorite characters and I want to see what happens to them.
While I believe there is a middle ground between .99 cent games and 65$ blockbusters (which incidentally may see a price increase if dev costs go up again dramatically this gen like last gen. 70-80 dollar games? Scary.)
Going back to Square Enix, they said that their Agni's Prophecy tech demo would be possible this upcoming generation if there was enough RAM in the new consoles. That demo looked amazing. That is, in my opinion, a huge graphical leap compared to what we have now. Unless there is some crazy new way of getting assets and resources into a game, a lot of those have to be hand crafted. There are artists and animators doing a lot of that work by hand. That costs time and money.
Humor me here. Let's say Agni's Prohphecy (the game) costs even $50 million to develop, and then retails at 69.99+ tax. That comes to 76.49 here in AZ. I see "76.49" as "80" which, in my opinion, is shocking. That's sticker shock right there. I'm afraid that developers will try to justify a higher retail price on their games by having higher development costs, and then telling the consumer that "Well we have to charge more because you are getting a better, prettier, larger, more dynamic, cinematic game. This isn't your dad's Final Fantasy, people, and we don't make Angry Birds. We are leading the pack in digital entertainment. We are bleeding edge."
And then the game may or may not sell, and a beloved company tries to take a gamble on something, and goes out of business. Yeah, many studios have opened, but how many of them are as well known or really delivering great content like some of the other ones?
I personally could not name one studio that emerged this generation that is developing great console titles.
Strangely enough, Nintendo may be in the best position of all. With a console that's not "leaps and bounds" more powerful than its current-gen competition, it may be in the perfect place to deliver that "middle ground" single-handedly. Because the console isn't outrageously more powerful, it, in a way, forces developers to work on pushing and polishing more of what we have seen this gen, which may end up keeping dev costs and retail prices down.
Despite all the nay-saying, all of the doubt, it's possible that Nintendo will be the last one laughing at the end of Gen 8, because the other kids bit off way more than they could chew, and costs were simply too high.
I dunno. Speculation.
