hey man good blog! I never really thought of it that way. It has been a strange generation, that's for sure.... I do have hopes though that the future is bright for gaming.
It is interesting that Atlus skipped a generation. Pretty bizarre actually.
HD Was a Practice Generation
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 On 03/06/2013 at 12:31 AM by jjindie See More From This User » |
I'm going to try to avoid ranting and raving and getting mad as hell about game cancellations or delays, like Dead Space 4 and Star Wars 1313. Not because that's my style or that's my personality, the calm and collected journalistically-minded writer, rather just the opposite. I'm an editorial guy, and hardly a journalist at all, since I don't get paid for anything. It was Jesse Miller's turn to lose his shit over the state of the gaming industry. Now it's my turn to be cool, use my experience in Japan to contrast his view, and maybe hope to show that the next gaming generation, PS4 and Xbox 720, should be better than the last. Becuase I believe the first HD generation was a practice generation.
I can rattle off more names of so-called AAA games that were delayed or cancelled for this generation than any other. The Last Guardian, Versus 13, Six Days in Fallujah, Star Wars 1313 = likely cancelled. Bioshock Infinite, GTA V, the Last of US = noticably delayed. Maybe it's just because these are the games of the here and now, and I'd truly have to do some research and work hard and shit as a writer to see if previous generations had similar problems with development cycles. Game delays and cancellations of previous generations didn't matter as much because companies could survive and there were enough games in the marketplace to keep things competitive. That's not true with the first HD generation of AAA titles. This is the one and done generation, as in 38 Studios and Big Huge Games' Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.
There were a few companies that hardly attempted to join the HD generation, most of them Japanese. Take a look at Wikepedia for a list of Atlus developed games for the PS3 and you'll find one. They published a few others, but the development team responisble for Shin Megami Tensei made only one game for the first HD era, Catherine. Their staple franchises like the Strange Journey series, Persona 3 & 4, and their remkaes migrated away from HD over to handhelds. There are plenty of Persona 5 rumors, but so far no details.
Sega also took some of their games that started out on HD and moved them onto handhelds. The original Valkyria Chronicles was a PS3 exclusive but all of its sequels ended up on handhelds. Sega published a whole whack load of games for the HD era, here's a great list, but most of them were not developed in house. Actually that list does appear fairly vast and comprehensive, so maybe Sega did join the HD era more than othes, but mostly as a publisher. And keep in mind, some of those games were Xbox Live and PSN downloadable HD updates and re-releases. Jet Set Radio. Crazy Taxi.
If this was the one and done generation, it was also the rehash and re-release generation. Metal Gear Solid 3 HD, Peacewalker HD. Okami HD. Ico and Shadow of the Colussus HD. I'm really cherry-picking here, but some sort of pattern is definitely developing. Like I said, this generation was a practice generation, even for Hideo Kojima!
Even the developers and producers described Catherine as Atlus's practice project for the HD era. Here's a great snippet from an interview with Katsura Hashino, director for Catherine and much of the Megaten and Persona series. (Wohoo! I actually get to link out to 1up.com! Who knows how long that will last!?!)
“If we were going to make an RPG on an HD console, though, then we had no idea how many years that would’ve wound up taking. Instead, we wanted to shift gears in our minds and produce a new genre of game for this new hardware."
And that game was Catherine, a practice game.
There's quite a list of developers with projects rumored to be in the works for PS4. I'll link out to Attack of the Fanboy's list. Take that with a gain of salt. I'll link out to IGN as well (cold shakes, cold shakes!) who seem to have Atlus listed as one of the developers with a game in the works for PS4. Take that with two grains of salt.
But if any of this turns out to be true, especially the IGN info, and these companies actually manage to complete at least one game for next gen, then it appears more companies will have finally joined the HD era. Let's hope developers like Atlus got enough practice with Catherine. And big bitch publishers like Electronic Arts stop pushing all the risk to the developers, as I think Jesse was trying to get at. Here's hoping. (Guess who published Kingdoms of Amalur = EA!)
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