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The State of Video Gaming in 2025 (Matthew Ball)

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Really great report with a bunch of data to mull over.

www.matthewball.co

PRESENTATION: The State of Video Gaming in 2025 — MatthewBall.co

A (free) 220 page presentation on the past, present and potential future of the video game industry.
www.matthewball.co www.matthewball.co
 
final fantasy xvi cost how much

But god damn, does Halo Infinite's budget not show at all in the final product.

The forever games don't actually seem to be growing in relative terms of how much time they take up, which honestly I consider something of a win.
 
I wouldn't take these budget estimations outside confirmed ones as truth unless you want to believe RDR2 costs less than Final Fantasy XVI.
 
Yup it's for regional splits (which were know are wrong for Europe & ROTW based on Wedbush/NPD data posted here), XBOX sell-through, and CY sell-through for all devices.
 
Very interesting.. not sure about some of these "independently reported budgets" but not totally unreasonable. I think FFXVI is on the lower end maybe even around 150M, It is very linear & I am pretty sure they used a pre-existing engine at square that they just re-tooled, but you never know!
 
I'm a bit skeptical of some of these numbers, like I don't believe the FFXVI budget number that seems un-possible.

The Halo 6 budget also seems inflated to me, I'm wondering if that's not some sum-on-going budget or something to that effect. We know Halo had a lot of dev issues and needed a lot of rework but the cost seems a bit (a lot) too high.
 
Vena said:
I'm a bit skeptical of some of these numbers, like I don't believe the FFXVI budget number that seems un-possible.

The Halo 6 budget also seems inflated to me, I'm wondering if that's not some sum-on-going budget or something to that effect. We know Halo had a lot of dev issues and needed a lot of rework but the cost seems a bit (a lot) too high.
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I think these numbers are a bit of a mix: some is known, some has leaked, some has just been rumored
I think, for example, that the HALO one has been discussed also here on IB, as a rumor (not confirmed at all so far)
 
Vena said:
I'm a bit skeptical of some of these numbers, like I don't believe the FFXVI budget number that seems un-possible.

The Halo 6 budget also seems inflated to me, I'm wondering if that's not some sum-on-going budget or something to that effect. We know Halo had a lot of dev issues and needed a lot of rework but the cost seems a bit (a lot) too high.
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It includes the cost of (re)developing the Slipstream engine, which has to be placed entirely on this game now because they shifted into using Unreal Engine for their next game.

They were building a game with the assumption that it would go on and deliver 10 years of Halo gametime+MTX. The stated cost is entirely possible imo.
 
Aostia82 said:
I think these numbers are a bit of a mix: some is known, some has leaked, some has just been rumored
I think, for example, that the HALO one has been discussed also here on IB, as a rumor (not confirmed at all so far)
Click to expand...

I believe the leaked Halo budget was "on-going budget" though which would be a very different number from many of these other non-GAAS styled games.

Alucard said:
It includes the cost of (re)developing the Slipstream engine, which has to be placed entirely on this game now because they shifted into using Unreal Engine for their next game.

They were building a game with the assumption that it would go on and deliver 10 years of Halo gametime+MTX. The stated cost is entirely possible imo.
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Yes I agree but that's more of a GAAS "budget" compared to, say, RDDR1/2 which are one-off games. Or FFXVI.

Similarly, the inflation with COD is likely in large part because COD has transitioned to a long-term GAAS product with on-going development.
 
The increase in development costs are especially frightening when the series then goes through a sales contraction trend, such as Halo and Final Fantasy.
Square Enix decision to pursue platform exclusivity was particularly misguided.

I find the "high-performance" dotted line funny when the events in motion are converging toward a "good enough-performance" invisible line.
Also the inclusion of Switch Lite but exclusion of past handheld consoles is puzzling.
 
Celine said:
The increase in development costs are especially frightening when the series then goes through a sales contraction trend, such as Halo and Final Fantasy.
Square Enix decision to pursue platform exclusivity was particularly misguided.

I find the "high-performance" dotted line funny when the events in motion are converging toward a "good enough-performance" invisible line.
Also the inclusion of Switch Lite but exclusion of past handheld consoles is puzzling.
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Accuracy of this data aside, I think the trend is concerning for everyone, including games that sell very well like Sony first party. Since the overall Console population is stagnating or even shrinking currently, by and large individual sales potential of IPs also equalize at some point, but if game development costs keep rising, then the ROI continues to shrink. Now companies try to capture more revenue through services, asking higher prices/less discounts, and selling add-ons, but that still may not be enough. So either they cut back on development costs, but risk blow back from fan bases that expect a certain product, or they try to expand total sales potential but publishing outside of historic ecosystems. The end of this generation and the beginning of the next will have a lot of businesses going through paradigm shifts once thought unthinkable a decade ago.
 
awng782 said:
Kinda entertained by the notion that increasing the price of GTAVI to $80-100 is a good idea for industry growth.
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when i was a kid, a snes shooter was 4 hrs. probably made by a handful of devs in a basement. now, you can literally live in these games. literally, the complexity difference is unreal.

clearly the industry found out increasing the topline price isnt really the answer tho, or theyd do it. it's all mtx, dlc, deluxe editions, early access editions, battle pass.

$80 for a game people will live in for years doesnt seem out of line. BUT i dont think they will go there. just because of the bad pub/risk, i wouldn't.

anyways, halo infinite has a confirmed dev cost so out of line with all the others? i honestly find it a bit hard to believe. major mismanagement if so. it's a utterly fantastic game imo, the best halo imo, but ultra content packed, or visual asset packed, it is not.
 
I was wondering why I didn't see much talk on this report. I could easily notice a few bits of data did not make sense
 
Seeing Switch lumped in with gen 8 always makes me shudder. The Wii U was gen 8. And what logic is there in combining the Switch Lite and Switch OLED into a segment, how does this even make sense.

Besides, an analysis of console sales would be more meaningful if it went with years instead of the arbitrary definition of generations. I think the Install Base user phantom-thief pieced something better together than what I am confronted with here when it comes to the topic of rising development costs and stagnating sales of the target platforms.
 
AViewtifulMind said:
Seeing Switch lumped in with gen 8 always makes me shudder. The Wii U was gen 8. And what logic is there in combining the Switch Lite and Switch OLED into a segment, how does this even make sense.

Besides, an analysis of console sales would be more meaningful if it went with years instead of the arbitrary definition of generations. I think the Install Base user phantom-thief pieced something better together than what I am confronted with here when it comes to the topic of rising development costs and stagnating sales of the target platforms.
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can you link me to that?
 
Rotimiade said:
can you link me to that?
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There you go:

Phantom Thief

Community Discussion  Thread 'The stagnation/decline in the AAA console marketplace, its implications on the health of the industry, and what can be done to reverse the trend'

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PLEASE NOTE: For the purposes of this write up, I will be using the Wikipedia nomenclature for console generations (I.e., third generation, seventh generation, etc.). Regardless of whether or not one agrees with this breakdown, ultimately it is an efficient and universally understood nomenclature convention among enthusiasts, so I am leveraging it here. Please do not turn this thread into the merits or validity of that classification system. Please do not take the...
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