Report: Expect fewer AAA games in the future

The costs of developing them has increased a lot, as have the time needed to make them, and now several publisher says they will have to slow down the releases.

If you think major games have been in short supply lately, you should be prepared for things to get even worse. Journalist Stephen Totilo has written a report on the matter on his own site Game File and points out that Microsoft, Nintendo, Sega and Square Enix have all pointed out that they will have to slow down the pace of major titles in the future.

The reason is that costs have simply skyrocketed, as has the time it takes to make big games today, as Microsoft recently said in an interview:

"The cost associated with making these beautiful AAA blockbuster games is going up, and the time it takes to make them is going up."

Nintendo CEO Shuntaro Furukawa recently said something similar in connection with the company's quarterly report, and Sega said in its latest quarterly report that "rising labor costs and longer development periods" are a pressing problem. Add to this Square Enix claiming that they "will pursue a shift from quantity to quality".

One can reasonably suspect that the situation is the same for other publishers too, and Sony said earlier this year that we should not expect any big games from their most famous series until April 2025 at the earliest.

What do you think about this, do the games need to get bigger and bigger with each new instalment, or is it time to reconsider the AAA concept?