ThePanzini

Yeah, I never got the reverence for Killzone finishing 2 was a real struggle. The entire experience was giant blur of grey samey linear levels, all I remember is Brian Cox and the heavy clunky controls. I think the DualSense is the best controller ever made in straight contrast to the DualShock 3 being the absolute worst, I used the CronusMax and the 360 pad.

Matt Booty comments although tone deaf are not necessarily wrong. Hi-Fi Rush was in development for 5 years its small for a AAA title but not a small game, Arrowhead (Helldivers 2) for instance are smaller than Tango Gameworks, also Grounded was made by fewer people quicker and still topping the most played charts on Game Pass. Palworld, Manor Lords & Vampire Survivors have all done more for Game Pass at fraction of the cost, all high impact games.

@apewins: Only Steam has real worldwide support and even then it has limits, but everyone else works the same way.

I believe that there's been an unspoken arrangement where these customers just create an account elsewhere and Soy doesn't ask any questions, and small markets are just used to it.

The Xbox network is available in 42 countries, PlayStation network 70.

just got my switch today and checked the nintendo eShop. surprised to see that it is not available in our country, can I access it or is there no other way?

Xbox not available in my country

Up to 55% of European countries are not officially supported

You can buy a PS5 in places like Estonia and setup an account from another region, its probably a language & payment vs expense issue, impacting a small number of people. It is wild though they didn't see this coming.

@av_gamer: Hasn't every developer publisher worrying about costs since the HD era, with such high figures you'd be crazy not to.

Using napkin math Tears of the Kingdom cost ~180m using a ton of assets from the previous game. Nintendo already said it expects longer more complex dev on Switch 2, wouldn't they naturally be worried.

$115k Average Nintendo developer salary - 100,000 x 300 people over 6 years 180m

Insomniac are working on dlc probably stand-alone so not major, but Miles Morales was largely created using existing assets thus having much lower cost of goods, its why it had such a high return on investment on the leaked docs.

The model for Insomniac spend big money on the game then smaller spin off title. That $300m will go a long way covering two games.

@av_gamer: Spider-Man 2 needed to sell 7m copies to break even, it was profitable in a few months.

Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 Swings Past 10 Million Sold

Spider-Man 2 went on to sell five million after just 11 days on sale. And now, Sony has confirmed it’s sold 10 million after 107 days on sale.

Edit,

450 development team for Spider-Man 2 and cost $285m over 4 years.

300 Breath of the Wild over 4 years

300 Tears of the Kingdom over 6 years

Zelda in the ~$200m ballpark only lower because of the location, then imagine 4k assests and DLSS Switch 2.

I'd hope the countries Helldivers 2 was withdrawn from had no owners, I don't believe Sony will sell games outside the PSN regions.

@sparky_buzzsaw: Proprietary engines have become the exception not the norm, Unreal Engine ubiquity has increased as the games have gotten more complex, Nintendo has even started using it, the tools are pretty much standardize we see less bespoke tech largely down to cost. Its cheaper to use UE than staff and build yourself.

The biggest cost in gaming is people specifically you need a lot of artists creating high quality 3d assets takes a long time, which increases with better hardware cause you need to create even higher quality artwork and takes longer.

@sparky_buzzsaw:

I think whoever is best poised for long-term gains isn't going to be the company that has the best games or the best studios, but who has the best and easiest engines and tech with which to develop games.

What does best mean? The person answering would radically change the answer.

@bigsocrates: Playstation selling the first 50m was never going to be a problem its the next 50m, the core are far less price sensitive. The Series S is just less desirable regardless of price and Xbox has fewer core customers after its problems last gen they hit the wall sooner. If margins weren't being eaten by hardware so much we'd have fewer cuts elsewhere.