14 DAY TRIAL // We're seeing more and more big games launched via digital distribution on consoles at the moment, with the original Crysis just arriving on Xbox Live and on the PlayStation Network, but at least one development studio believes that the move towards digital needs to happen quicker.
Speaking to Gamasutra as part of a bigger interview Tameem Antoniades, who is the Chief Creative Officer at Ninja Theory, has stated that publishers will benefit from it, because “They won’t be held hostage to this model that’s so restrictive. They can release more games at different price points, different sized games – they don’t have to bet the farm on the one big blockbuster or the two big blockbusters every year.”
The Ninja Theory executive believes that such a transformation of the video game industry will help developers and publishers create more innovative video games because the risk they are being exposed to are lower.
Antoniades added, “They can test games before they push the marketing; like release them early, beta them, release the first episodes. Instead of deciding, ‘Oh okay, we’ve got three games in our portfolio. We think this one’s going to be a hit, so all our marketing’s going to go into that one, and the other one’s going to have to sink.’”
Ninja Theory were the creators of last year's Enslaved, which took its story inspiration from a Chinese legend and created some pretty neat gameplay mechanics that commented on dependency and the need to work together to overcome obstacles.
At the moment the studio is working on the reboot of Devil May Cry, which is set to launch during 2012, with a new look for the main character and changes to gameplay.
It's not clear whether publisher Capcom is interested in bringing the game to the PSN and Xbox Live at the same time that it is launched at retail.