Eyeopening article into gaming's biggest problem, rising costs.

Nintendo's Wii and DS hardware was lower-spec, which meant they could produce games at lower cost, which meant they reaped better profits. So no.

The 3DS on the other hand might be getting there. The three-dee technology alone probably bumps development costs up a notch, but I'm no expert.

Jury's waaaaaay out on the Wii U.

edited 1st Aug '12 2:52:44 PM by ShirowShirow

DNF's a bit of an outlier. The technology race of the 90's forced them to switch engines multiple times.

So far the 3DS games aren't anymore expensive than DS games though, even if the handheld itself costs about $40 more than a DS Lite.

DS title normally cost around $40?

Yeah.

The 3DS' 3D capabilities doesn't really increase dev costs - You really just need to render two images from slightly different angles to make 3D work. It's much easier to do 3D in gaming than it is to do it in film.

Honestly, the problem of rising costs is actually one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to Euclideon's Unlimited Detail tech, and hoping it'll live up to the hype. No need for level of detail models, no polygon budget to force modelers to stick to, and laser-scanning real-world objects allows developers to save considerable amounts of time and money.

Granted, that doesn't solve the studio mismanagement that's been plaguing the industry, but it would help.

Just heard from a friend that SWTOR is going free-to-play. I translated that to mean that it flopped.

Well, it had a great Launch.

The fact that it did go F 2 P so quickly did/does raise a few eyebrows from everyone. On the other hand, if it succeeds as a F 2 P game that might seriously shake the status quo up a lot. Think about it; the most costly game ever made being a free-to-play game.

Well, it's apparently been losing subscribers at a fairly steady pace since launch. I can't exactly say I'm surprised — my enthusiasm for the game waned when I played a free trial and realized that both sides have essentially the same classes for a good portion of the game. As an altaholic, that was a bit upsetting.