News Nintendo, Microsoft, Square welcome us to the era of fewer big video games - Stephen Totilo

[Clov]

If they keep going, perhaps we can end up at the fabled era of no video games...

But another option that would be good would be if we got more smaller and niche games instead of these big and boring ones!

 

[Lord Azrael]

I always go back to their atrocious handling of TWEWY2.

I don't even know with happened with that one. People harped on Square for skipping it in their summer presser (or was it Sony's? Don't remember), but I actually felt that it had alright marketing. It was absent from some key events yeah, but it had a decent amount of trailers. More than most other mid budget Square titles at least. Then again, the titles that got even less marketing did poorly too lol, so I guess that's not saying much. I guess being a sequel to a niche handheld RPG didn't do it any favors. God what a shame, game was so good. Liked it better than the first one

 

[JazzyFuture]

I hope we're going towards the era of smaller games. Sure, I love TotK. One of my favourite games ever. I also don't think I want every series to be that, hell, I don't even want Zelda to entirely go down the road of massive AAA megabudget game with hundreds of hours of content.
I think allowing studios to make smaller games in between or on the side of a massive undertaking should absolutely be the way to go. The desire to go all in on budget and scope has killed so many series for years, despite there still being a market for those types of games, that might have even grown larger in the years of absence.

Games like BotW and TotK are special because they're a rarity, but you can see areas where the scope holds it back in other ways, in a way that a smaller game would flourish. And I think that's something companies should not forget, even though at the end of the day, they don't care about anything but profits.

 

[grobla123]

Sucks if you bounce off 1 game, you get wait another 5-8 for a game by the same dev team. Woohoo.

Whats wild is the dev tools and technology/productivity are better than ever. You could make what is functionally a 360 title+ so much more easily today. And it would look better and run better with a combination of brute forced specs and more mature tools. Engines and resources do more and lighting/rigging etcs have much broader options now.

But expectations are simply way higher. Why settle for a 360 game plus, when a PS5 game may have a world the size of a small state, with animation/motion capture up there with top tier movie studios and detail down to hairs and pores on a characters skin etc and you can get it for $60/70, (before it halves in price over a year or two).

And then indies fill the $1-$30 niche handily, with much smaller resources (but still usually using at least some of the modern engine/improved tools we have today). And even then, its waaay more competitive and less safe that people think. Indi devs collapse every day. Downright good titles get canned regularly, and angel/big dev funding often stifles them too.

People keep voting with their wallets. They simply don't want AA games for the most part, or aren't willing to pay for them at any rate.

And yet the industry is at an impasse, it cannot release games that are so expensive and time consuming to make, there will be a brick wall, Microsoft is there (given their market penetration), Sony might in if they can't get budgets under control and Nintendo is taking their first steps in to that reality themselves. But that's whats floated that industry for decades now and gamers expect it. It is what sells, well safely that is. Luckily for Nintendo expectations are lower and they can smooth it over with stylized visuals (not that other developers cannot). But even they will see what happens if they want to push the Switch 2 as hard as Sony pushed the PS4. It wont be cheap.

We do see GaaS and your breakouts like Minecraft and such every now and then, but that seems even riskier and not much easier to actually make. Maybe harder when the market gets saturated.

What does game dev look like when we hit market saturation? When new kids join more slowly, when gamer moms and dads and jocks and businessman already know about gaming and already spend what they are comfortable with?

There was a lot of hoo ha about the PS4 generation maybe having a decline competing with mobile. It didn't reaaaally happen, mostly, kinda. But we do see a slowing of new customers in console/pc gaming outside of developing countries (which are already post-mid transition to phone/pc/ and sometimes switch).

I don't see a crash, but I do see a lowered interest, stifling of creativity/qol for workers and still growing expenses. I see a slow but noticeable decline. Or arguably a correction. Maybe there simply isn't enough money to be made to be worth the investment. So lets stop hiring and firing like everything is a big tech hype stock.

But on the plus side, plenty, in fact loads of great games come out constantly. And thankfully plenty of creative titles do succeed. If less money and dev resources go in to gaming. Honestly, oh well? Its a cool medium, but its a luxury. Talent may go in to TV/movies/books/animation, or even just back in to staple roles that keeps your food, water and lifestyle reasonable. It does suck for people who lose their jobs, but hopefully everyone will find some new employment somewhere and can find value in new roles and with friends/families and other hobbies.

 

[VintoWin]

Gotta give Nintendo credit though more than 10 in this modern environment is an absolute smorgasbord.

Correct. Simply put, Nintendo does not belong in this conversation at all.

He says this like Switch 2 output will be worse than Switch 1. No evidence for this other than Furukawa stating game development is getting longer and harder but.... they also are like doubling their studios for next gen. Idk Seems like this is the same exact statement that they've been using since the jump to HD game development back from Wii -> Wii U. I think they are already prepared. I don't think we're going to see like 50% less titles on Switch 2... doubt it.

Reality is, if they had continued to do 1 console 1 handheld, the console would have suffered bigtime. Combining them was the smartest decision. Even if overall output is less than it was before.

 

[Ricimer]

Sucks if you bounce off 1 game, you get wait another 5-8 for a game by the same dev team. Woohoo.

Whats wild is the dev tools and technology/productivity are better than ever. You could make what is functionally a 360 title+ so much more easily today. And it would look better and run better with a combination of brute forced specs and more mature tools. Engines and resources do more and lighting/rigging etcs have much broader options now.

But expectations are simply way higher. Why settle for a 360 game plus, when a PS5 game may have a world the size of a small state, with animation/motion capture up there with top tier movie studios and detail down to hairs and pores on a characters skin etc and you can get it for $60/70, (before it halves in price over a year or two).

And then indies fill the $1-$30 niche handily, with much smaller resources (but still usually using at least some of the modern engine/improved tools we have today). And even then, its waaay more competitive and less safe that people think. Indi devs collapse every day. Downright good titles get canned regularly, and angel/big dev funding often stifles them too.

People keep voting with their wallets. They simply don't want AA games for the most part, or aren't willing to pay for them at any rate.

And yet the industry is at an impasse, it cannot release games that are so expensive and time consuming to make, there will be a brick wall, Microsoft is there (given their market penetration), Sony might in if they can't get budgets under control and Nintendo is taking their first steps in to that reality themselves. But that's whats floated that industry for decades now and gamers expect it. It is what sells, well safely that is. Luckily for Nintendo expectations are lower and they can smooth it over with stylized visuals (not that other developers cannot). But even they will see what happens if they want to push the Switch 2 as hard as Sony pushed the PS4. It wont be cheap.

We do see GaaS and your breakouts like Minecraft and such every now and then, but that seems even riskier and not much easier to actually make. Maybe harder when the market gets saturated.

What does game dev look like when we hit market saturation? When new kids join more slowly, when gamer moms and dads and jocks and businessman already know about gaming and already spend what they are comfortable with?

There was a lot of hoo ha about the PS4 generation maybe having a decline competing with mobile. It didn't reaaaally happen, mostly, kinda. But we do see a slowing of new customers in console/pc gaming outside of developing countries (which are already post-mid transition to phone/pc/ and sometimes switch).

I don't see a crash, but I do see a lowered interest, stifling of creativity/qol for workers and still growing expenses. I see a slow but noticeable decline. Or arguably a correction. Maybe there simply isn't enough money to be made to be worth the investment. So lets stop hiring and firing like everything is a big tech hype stock.

But on the plus side, plenty, in fact loads of great games come out constantly. And thankfully plenty of creative titles do succeed. If less money and dev resources go in to gaming. Honestly, oh well? Its a cool medium, but its a luxury. Talent may go in to TV/movies/books/animation, or even just back in to staple roles that keeps your food, water and lifestyle reasonable. It does suck for people who lose their jobs, but hopefully everyone will find some new employment somewhere and can find value in new roles and with friends/families and other hobbies.

Development tools and standardized engines being significantly better than ever really boggle my mind in relation to this issue. You would think that would help mitigate the impact of these 5-7+ year dev cycles.

The scale and scope of everything really needs to come back down to reality

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

I don't even know with happened with that one. People harped on Square for skipping it in their summer presser (or was it Sony's? Don't remember), but I actually felt that it had alright marketing. It was absent from some key events yeah, but it had a decent amount of trailers. More than most other mid budget Square titles at least. Then again, the titles that got even less marketing did poorly too lol, so I guess that's not saying much. I guess being a sequel to a niche handheld RPG didn't do it any favors. God what a shame, game was so good. Liked it better than the first one

The issue wasn’t so much the trailers but marketing after that. It essentially became one of those titles that got even less marketing. Overall SE is generally pretty bad on their non-AAA catalogue.

 

[Lozjam]

I think people really underestimate how much absolute garbage Nintendo used to put out because of their multiconsole approach.

And the fact that their series have gotten far better, and with far more content.

Instead of:
Mario Party Island Tour
Mario Party Star Rush
Mario Party the Top 100
Mario Party 10

We got:
Super Mario Party
Mario Party Superstars
Both of those games put together have way more content, and quality than pretty much all of those games combined.

Instead of:
Animal Crossing New Leaf
Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer
Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival

We got:
Animal Crossing New Horizons, and the DLC was a souped up version of Happy Home Designer, so we got the content of both games.

Instead of:
New Super Mario Bros 2
New Super Mario's Bros U
New Super Luigi U
Mario Maker
Mario Maker 3DS
Mario 3D Land
Mario 3D World

We got:
Mario Maker 2
Mario Wonder
Mario Odyssey
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
Mario 3D World + Bowser's fury

Thats not even counting of legitimate shovelware that Nintendo had to put out too: stuff like:
Wii Sports Club
4 Mario vs. Donkey Kong games in the same generation
Wii Party U
Several Mario vs. Sonic at the Olympic Games(every 2 years)
Mario sports Superstars

So yeah. Nintendo has largely stopped publishing shovelware, and they have more or less combined their game experiences. But to make up for that, their mainline entries pretty much the combined content of their handheld and console counterparts. It's a win win.

That's not to say Nintendo isn't doing small games. We just had Endless Ocean, and countless other examples such as Switch Sports, Clubhouse Games, Brain Age, ect.

I do think it's honestly disingenuous to say that Nintendo is lacking of content just because the amount of titles is marginally less. Especially considering that their current games are jammed with content, often has worthwhile DLC. Honestly, Nintendo fans haven't had this much content since the SNES.

 

[freedomseekr]

Keep in mind that a non-negligible part of games development are sponsorships by CPU and GPU companies like Intel, AMD and Nvidia.

These companies are invested in keeping productions complex because it allows them to push their banana products.

 

[Bonejack]

I think Nintendo's moderate approach is something other devs needs to take a good look at and think about hard.

Generally though, i'm fine with fewer big games.

 

[BowserIsMyFather]

Nintendo will carry on being Nintendo.

In Next Gen, they have the capability to make bigger, better looking games, and will no doubt do so. Setting the expectations that this will be more complicated doesn't mean that they won't bother.

Sony and MS on the other hand..... Well, they are having their woes.

Out of the three, Nintendo have cut their cloth accordingly.

 

[Aufhebung RPG]

I prefer the Falcom approach of more small video games

I love indie games and Nintendo's gameplay creativity, but I'm definitely not going to say that after eschewing big video games I'm going to go with Falcom's outdated games with no growth in design, it's just not a good choice.

 

[Aether]

Solution: do smaller ones. Bam, winwinwin.

I never understood the need of big Devs and publishers to push the hardware with more and bigger assets. Higher resolution, better ilumination and shadows, higher frame rates don't scale as expensive as better assets, still help games look better, and aren't as taxing on development


Just as Nintendo did often.

 

[Bonejack]

Solution: do smaller ones. Bam, winwinwin.

I never understood the need of big Devs and publishers to push the hardware with more and bigger assets. Higher resolution, better ilumination and shadows, higher frame rates don't scale as expensive as better assets, still help games look better, and aren't as taxing on development


Just as Nintendo did often.

What really baffles me is that in today's industry, you have new dev teams of various size starting-up, sometimes with experienced folks, sometimes with less of those, and doing a "techshowcase AAAAA game experience additional keywords", only to overpromise, underdeliver and basically shutting down due to the missing success.

Like ... what? Folks, please stay in reality.

 

[naobinokami]

I had not even realised Nintendo's output was that much smaller than it used to be because they are still one of the most active publishers in the biz and their quality is much higher than it was on the 3DS. Crazy.

 

[MisterSpo]

I mean, the point here seems pretty obvious given the jump in scale from 3DS-level development to Switch-level development:

Nintendo hasn’t outright said it, but, without any visible decline in its development resources, it appears to be putting more of its people onto fewer games.

The connection here between Nintendo and other publishers feels a little off, partially because it ignores that Nintendo's team sizes and production scales don't necessarily always mean 'big game' or 'major software' by the metrics that the rest of the games industry deals in or prioritises. Equally, it doesn't acknowledge that some of the reduction in output is down to what would've been software redundancy: there's now no need for two Animal Crossings, two Mario Karts, two Mario Tennis etc per generation because Nintendo are selling to a single platform, while Nintendo's eventual embrace of DLC further reduces the number of individual titles.

Importantly though, while it's true team sizes have increased at Nintendo, it's also clear that Nintendo still generate bigger returns than other publishers from titles with a less resource intensive scope. Take Super Mario Bros. Wonder, which had a development team of something like 350 to 400 people, mostly drawn from Nintendo's internal teams and subsidiaries (EPD, Mario Club, SRD, Nintendo Pictures). That's for the latest entry in a flagship series, a title which will shift 15 to 20 million copies over its lifetime; but the total headcount isn't dissimilar to new IP Astral Chain, which sold a tenth as much. So while yes, Nintendo are using more people to make fewer games, that isn't part of a commitment to just putting larger teams on larger products to try and generate bigger returns from those fewer, larger bets. It simply means that, by and large, Nintendo need larger teams regardless of the commercial potential of the game they're making. That commitment to titles - Astral Chain, Bayonetta, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, Metroid, Pikmin 4 - which don't sell big numbers isn't the same kind of strategy we're seeing across the rest of the console industry, which means putting bigger teams into fewer bets in the hopes those bets come out with big returns. Of course, part of Nintendo's strategy here is to know which development resources to prioritise or utilise; Astral Chain had EPD staff but primarily drew from Platinum, and so limited resources at EPD don't prevent a variety of games from being made (and obviously the titles I mentioned are primarily made outside EPD, so it's a widespread strategy). Nintendo's ability to use fewer resources to complete a major game, like Mario Bros, Switch Sports or Mario Party - and to position a wide variety of products outside of Zelda or 'AAA' titles as major releases - is very different to the market other companies have created, and it's one reason they're not joining other publishers in lay-offs and closures.

In fact, we did see it last year with 2D Mario, when it was dismissed as a major release by some sources simply because it didn't match the production scale of Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo's ability to generate big returns from 'smaller scope' productions is a huge strength in today's industry, and I find it a little odd that's overlooked when Totilo's pointing to success stories like Helldivers 2 or Palworld. Switch's top 20 sellers have things like Switch Sports, Mario Bros Wonder, Mario Party, Ring Fit Adventure, which don't need the massive AAA production scale to generation big returns, even if they're bigger than past efforts from Nintendo. Hell, you have a mega-product like the latest Final Fantasy releases seemingly struggle to reach or exceed the 5 million mark, while Nintendo put together teams of ~200 people to turn out titles like Link's Awakening (6.6 million) or 51 Worldwide Classics (4.5 million).

So sure, yes, Nintendo use more resources to create fewer games, like every conventional publisher. But they're not trapped in the cycle of layoffs, razor thin margins and only handling a small number of mega-franchises because they've curated a different development and publishing environment which has helped them maintain a different type of market.

 

[Aether]

What really baffles me is that in today's industry, you have new dev teams of various size starting-up, sometimes with experienced folks, sometimes with less of those, and doing a "techshowcase AAAAA game experience additional keywords", only to overpromise, underdeliver and basically shutting down due to the missing success.

Like ... what? Folks, please stay in reality.

Simply: it's "easy" to put together a vertical slice for a trailer with unreal 5 and high Def assets from the asset store or 3d scanned locations... To get buzz and investors.

But delivering a coherent game? Then it falls apart.

 

[Ahmed]

Zelda Team EPD produced those titles. They didn't internally develop them.

Nintendo producing titles is usually a couple of higher-up producers working together with external partner studios who handle the development. A good example is Kensuke Tanabe serving as the producer for Retro Studios.

Zelda team isn't using their development resources to make handheld-style/2D Zelda games anymore.

Exactly, and I think this is the same case with various other of their studios. We'd get a handheld and home console entry in series, now it's only one entry since the consolidation. The output didn't increase. They've relied way more on remasters and ports, otherwise I'd even go as far as to say we would have seen some software droughts here and there (though Nintendo sits on finished games a lot, so the release schedule could have looked totally different from what we've seen).

I personally don't really like the strategy of remakes, remasters and ports so much. They're overpriced, don't add much (if anything) new, and I'd rather they put those resources in new, original smaller games. I'd say games like Paper Mario are just there because Nintendo knows they can get an "easy" €60 out of people instead of putting it on NSO. Link's Awakening HD and Super Mario RPG are the same game (with some minor changes imo) in a new coat of paint for the price of a new game.

 

[ziggyrivers]

If there's anyone I trust in pumping out video games consistently, it's Nintendo. We'll get original AAA titles, AA games, remakes, remasters and third party collaborations all around.

 

[rickyson33]

What really baffles me is that in today's industry, you have new dev teams of various size starting-up, sometimes with experienced folks, sometimes with less of those, and doing a "techshowcase AAAAA game experience additional keywords", only to overpromise, underdeliver and basically shutting down due to the missing success.

Like ... what? Folks, please stay in reality.

hell forget underdelivering a lot of those new companies that pop up and try to make something super big budget don't even end up releasing anything at all before they shut down

 

[neil]

I'm ok with a company like Nintendo releasing fewer games but with higher quality. It seems a healthy situation given how many indies are out there and in need of space in the market. At least Nintendo isn't laying off tons of people.

 

[ziggyrivers]

There’s another good tidbit of information:
Two lawsuits over so-called Nintendo Switch Joy-Con drift are nearing their resolution, as Nintendo and the parents who brought the suits on behalf of their children have called for the cases’ dismissal.

 

[Dardan Sandiego]

I feel like Square Enix was already following the "Nintendo model" of having a few big games and several smaller ones. It feels like they're moving to something closer to what Capcom is doing, namely focusing on a few key games and cutting down on the smaller stuff. I guess time will tell.

 

[Yavga]

Rockstar laughing in the background "amateurs"

 

[Razgriz]

I think the main reason Nintendo hasn't commented on it is mainly because their output hasn't really changed in count, they just shifted gears from making games for 2 consoles to making games for 1 console.

If you remove either the handhelds or the consoles from their prior years, you end up with more or less the same output each year.

The graph also is from what I understand not entirely correctly calculated - they only counted games physically released on the NA market, which means the 2019 3DS count is incorrectly skewed since it was almost entirely localisations of JPN games. It also doesn't count the absurd amounts of tiny "5 minute time kill" games Nintendo makes to this day that don't get the love they deserve (boxboy...). The switch release for last year also counts Scarlet and Violet twice; one time extra for the bundle of the original with the DLC that they put out after all DLC was released.

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

I feel like Square Enix was already following the "Nintendo model" of having a few big games and several smaller ones. It feels like they're moving to something closer to what Capcom is doing, namely focusing on a few key games and cutting down on the smaller stuff. I guess time will tell.

I’d say their execution on that was pretty bad for the most part especially over the last two generations. As you say time will tell if they can do better.

 

[Apopheniac]

I feel like Square Enix was already following the "Nintendo model" of having a few big games and several smaller ones. It feels like they're moving to something closer to what Capcom is doing, namely focusing on a few key games and cutting down on the smaller stuff. I guess time will tell.

Square Enix's problem has been that their published output is mostly RPGs or RPG-adjacent, which isn't conducive to expanding the customer base that modern game development requires to sustain itself, even for what are now considered mid-budget games. Selling lengthy single-player games without additional monetization is a real challenge, and their attempts to expand beyond that – Babylon's Fall, Chocobo GP, Foamstars – have all landed flat.

 

[Thunder84]

At least in regards to Nintendo, it’s important to factor in post-launch content and DLC. The amount we’ve gotten with the Switch completely dwarfs what the Wii U and 3DS ever got. That sucks up a lot of resources.

That, plus the generally higher quality of releases, adds up to a result where I don’t think Nintendo really factors into this conversation, at least not in the same way that other AAA publishers do.

 

[Danny]

Nintendo rivals are in a much tougher spot. Nintendo can at least still sell a few million copies of low scale games like Mario RPG to pad out their release schedule. While Sony, Microsoft have a user base that demand AAA games.

 

[Sadist]

Reading through the article, I do feel there is some nuance needed.

As others mentioned, Nintendo's strategy compared to the strategy of a Sony, Square-Enix, Take Two, Microsoft etc. is still different. I mean no one will ignore the obvious smaller output of Nintendo. However, when you look at 2023 for example; for every big release (think Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, Fire Emblem Engage or Super Mario Bros. Wonder) there are smaller releases like Prime Remastered, Advance Wars 1 + 2, Wario Ware Move it!, Everybody 1-2 Switch, Bayonetta Origins etc.

Look at Sony for example; they had one big release with Spider-Man 2 . In 2024 they only have a few titles they publish and they are all big projects. For the rest of the year? Nothing. Microsoft has a harder time as well.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not naive enough to think that Nintendo won't be impacted by longer dev times. Furukawa already takes it into consideration. We have rumours of Nintendo contacting other studios to help with projects. (Like that one where apparantly UK based devs, likely being Sumo, having discussions with Nintendo) and there is that Bamco studio that will be working on Nintendo projects as well. Nintendo is already taking action in that department.

Still, I do believe that Nintendo for the next few years will be one of the few pubs who still release around ten games per year. Those "smaller" games will make it easier to fill out the release list.