development-cycle
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Capcom CEO wants shorter dev times, faster Devil May Cry turnaround
Capcom Chairman and CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto told investors of the company's plan to "reduce the time needed to develop major titles from the usual three to four years to only two and a half years," as part of a briefing on the fiscal year 2011 financial results earlier this month."Speeding up development will probably raise the cost," he said. "But creating quality content will be vital to Capcom's ability to survive by overcoming intense global competition. We will make substantial investments to develop this content."President and COO of Capcom Haruhiro Tsujimoto added to the CEO's comments in his own address, saying the company's plan is also "to increase [DLC] sales from 2.8 billion yen in the past fiscal year to 3.5 billion yen in the current fiscal year." The COO also noted that the upcoming Resident Evil 6 will release approximately three and a half years after Resident Evil 5, and Lost Planet 3 will launch after a two and a half year development cycle, both in a shorter time span than with past games.He added that DmC Devil May Cry will require five years of development due to a decision to switch to an external developer, with the end goal of creating new games in the series every two and a half years. With DmC Devil May Cry shipping in 2013, that equates to another game in the series in 2015.
New details on upcoming 3.x patches
Curse is running an excellent story about their time spent last evening with Blizzard developers Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton. There's a few things we didn't know before that are in the article. The major ones are: Patch 3.1 is already done (says Kaplan). Will release Ulduar 10-man and 25-man raids. Patch 3.2 will contain a yet to be announced raid instance. Hopefully more on this over the next two day. Release date / timeframe is unknown. Patch 3.3 will continue the Ashbringer storyline. Release date / timeframe is unknown. Dance studio to be released after WotLK. Guild ratings, where guilds get a rating based on PvE/PvP achievements. The idea is being "tossed around." The other interesting note is that the development team is three patch cycles ahead of the live game. That's amazing, in my opinion. And beyond that, they're also working on the next expansion. Doesn't that raise your eyebrow just a bit? Perhaps we'll hear something major in the next few hours... Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
Sony: Lack of innovation = value
Sony Entertainment President Kaz "Riiiidge Racer" Hirai says the $600 PS3 is a "very good value." Why? Because, thanks to Sony's geological approach to console development, it only costs you $60 per year of faithful service (This is the only answer he came up with):I think that we are offering a very good value for the consumers. We look at our products having a 10-year life cycle, which we've proven with the PlayStation. Therefore, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that's going to be with you again for 10 years. We're not going to ask the consumers to suddenly buy another PlayStation console in five years time, and basically have their investment go by the wayside. So for all those reasons, I think at $599 we're offering a very good value to the consumers.To put this in perspective, by the time you take home a PS4, your girlfriend's breasts will be three inches lower and that illegitimate glint in your eye will be in the 3rd grade. But it explains alot. Sony thinks their lack of innovation is actually a plus for the consumer. By this logic, why not stretch the cycle out to 30 years. That way, PS3 fanboys could still be dusting off their super-duper value in 2036 while our grandkids play with their "Xbox Classic" Home Holodecks.The world is just turning a little too fast for Kaz these days.[Thanks KingOfGods]
