Uncharted 2, from Sony Group Corp’s Naughty Dog, was released in 2009 and had a budget of $20 million. The studio’s latest game, The Last of Us: Part 2, cost more than $200 million.

So, uh...why can't we do that anymore? Even if you account for salary increases and avoiding crunch and such, $40M-$50M for a game as good as Uncharted 2 sounds great!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (10 children)

Because graphics still sell games. You can do simplified graphics like Nintendo and still sell games, but lots of people want the photo realistic experience and the bar for that has gone way way up incrementally over the years.

https://youtu.be/GB20A8CitRU?si=ZN-V-FAnKjnxGHBs

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I think we're seeing that that's no longer true. Minecraft is the best-selling game ever, for instance. If you want to build the photo realistic experience, maybe aim for a smaller scope of video game, like the more linear action games we used to get, because otherwise, the industry ends up in the state it's in.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Uncharted and Last of Us are first party Sony games. If they were to say that a game can still be enjoyable without cutting edge graphics no one would want to buy the latest PlayStation iteration.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

I think they're already running out of people who want to buy the latest PlayStation, and Sony clearly can't afford to throw hundreds of millions of dollars after this level of graphics anymore, because it's not resulting in equivalent growth of console sales to make up for it.

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