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[Ozriel]

Nothing vague about it. Every point you're making about AAA games, graphics and "bloat", thinly veiled insinuations about "gameplay focus" and "movie" stuff has been repeatedly shown not to be the case.

Jason Scheier himself has noted that indie games are taking too long and costing too much.
Spider-Man 2 is lean to the point of some people calling it short, reusing assets from 2 prior installments, and cost more than TLOU Part II and GOW 2018.
Callisto Protocol.
Immortals of Aveum.
ZA/UM (Disco Elysium studio)
Embracer's entire library of studios, with is almost nothing but AA Eurojank sweatshops.

This isn't about graphics or "lack of gameplay focus" whatever the hell that means, or as if the most holistic game design would be cheap or quick, or any of that. This is an issue of economic background and organizational structure.

The bulk of the budget goes on salaries. A significant reason why Spiderman 2 cost more than TLOU2 is because average salaries are higher these days.

So the more time you spend on a project, the more expensive it is.

 

[Mooreberg]

Lean on emerging markets... enter Xbox Series S.

UK officially in recession and economies elsewhere going down the pisser, luxury spends i.e. gaming is not on the table for many.

Yeah, a lot of people in threads about console pricing don't realize how much of a disposable luxury gaming is for most people.

Yep, there's only so many GaaS titles that can healthily sustain themselves at the same time.

Trying to get a slice of the pie up against Fortnite, Minecraft, ROBLOX, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Valorant, etc in the long term is no easy task.

Totally agreed. Too many developers/publishers are chasing an audience that fully occupied with what they are already playing.

Yeah that's totally on them because the Series S is actually the perfect offering by price/power.

I'll preface this by saying I realize you are in the UK, but the Series S situation in North America isn't particularly great. I was just in a store earlier tonight and

01. With Black Friday in the rear view mirror, Series S is back to $299.99 USD. This is the same price after three years on the market as PS3. PS3 had actual exclusives, games like God of War III a month out, a lot more coming down the pike, free online play, and an adequate amount of storage relative to game installation sizes of the time. Series S really does not match any of those aspects.

02. 512GB is not really enough space for a digital only console. Modern Warfare III alone would put a huge dent in that.

03. The pricing on storage expansion puts the combined cost at about $50 less than the $449 Xbox Series X sitting next to on the shelf.

The way the system has been managed and priced does not put it in a very good position, at least not in the US. Everybody missed the memo that you get more customers as the cycle progresses by dropping launch MSRP (by more than $50) and staying there.

 

[fart town usa]

Not everyone had your tastes. Being a "dipshit" has nothing to do with it.

I'm referring to gamers who act like there's nothing to play if no AAA games are out, and then they dump on smaller AA games because they look like previous generations, all while complaining that backwards compatibility isn't available for something like PS3. Surely you can see how that mindset doesn't make sense.

I'm guilty of hot takes all the time but I usually direct my ire at massive games that are at no-risk of failing (Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Sony Santa Monica, FFXVI ). Dog piling quality AA games, solely because they're not AAA is just lame.

 

[DaGwaphics]

Things are getting more expensive, but at the same time some of the tech that is being created should help to save time and money. When you think of MetaHuman and even the RTGI techniques, those are things designed to make things quicker and cheaper to do. Maybe some of the developers just back off the level of detail a bit as well, you could still have AAA story but maybe you don't push forward in the areas that are costing so much.

 

[CZY]

Not sure how anyone thinks a videogame is worth $70.

We paid $40 & $50 for NES games 40 fuckin years ago dude, back when you could still buy a new car for $8k and a house for $65k. Games have never been cheaper.