14 DAY TRIAL // Warren Spector, who is currently working on Epic Mickey 2, believes that the increase in production values associated with video games will soon make some companies unable to recuperate their costs because of how much resources the development process requires.
The veteran developer told Digital Spy that, “I don’t care much about hardware. Nintendo games are some of the best games in the world and from a more graphical standpoint, the Wii can’t do what a PS3 or 360 can do.
“It’s about design and not so much about tech for me. Honestly, I’m more scared about what will come next than I am excited.”
He added, “Once we can do Pixar-quality graphics rendered in real time with interactivity, I could see games costing $200 million to make and all of a sudden you have to sell a lot of games just to break even, so I’m a little worried someone’s going to do that.”
The developer says that there are companies who are already spending more than 100 million dollars (75.8 million Euro) on their titles and this is not even considered to be an extravagant sum.
Spector is also worried by the fact that the average development time of tree years means that technology progresses so quickly that some assets need to be redone before launch in order to match up with the rest of the experience.
Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is the next project for Junction Point and the theme of the game means that it can focus on creative gameplay and expressive art rather than on state of the art graphics.
The title will see Mickey join forces with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in order to stop the Mad Doctor from taking over Wasteland.
The game will be launched on the Nintendo Wii, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 and is expected to arrive in September 2012.