Xbox Game Studios chief says people need to realise games now take 4-6 years to make | VGC
Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty has said that modern games have development cycles of over half a decade in some cases, in an attempt to put to rest the fan expectation of new games every “two or three years.”
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Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty has said that both game players and the industry in general need to realise that most big games now have development cycles of around half a decade.
In an interview with Axios, Booty said:
Specifically referring to high-end big-budget games, Booty added that now “they’re four, and five, and six years”.
While the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation saw a plethora of large franchises releasing as many as three games in a series in the space of one console – Gears of War, Halo (3, Reach, 4) and Uncharted, for example – the Xbox One and PS4 generation saw this frequency slow significantly due to the increase in game budgets and the number of people working on individual titles.
While annualised franchises such as Assassin’s Creed (which routinely released a new title every Christmas until a recent break) and Call of Duty (which has maintained annual releases for almost 20 years) remain, they are aided by several studios swapping off development duty, meaning they’re spending closer to three or four years on each title.
Starfield, Xbox’s biggest game of the year, will be the firsttitle released from Bethesda Game Studios since Fallout 4 in 2015, marking an almost decade-long gap between games.
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