14 DAY TRIAL // Hideo Kojima, the developer that created the Metal Gear Solid franchise, believes that the coming generation of home consoles from Microsoft and Sony might increase development costs for AAA titles enough that an episodic format would become the only way of creating successful series.
Answering a question from Edge, the veteran designer says, “It can be distributed via download channels, so the player can try it out before production continues. Something like that wouldn’t take that long to create, maybe a year, and if it’s successful, you can continue.”
It’s unclear whether Kojima has direct knowledge of how development works on the PlayStation 4 or the Xbox 720 or if he is just speculating based on early looks at the hardware that is being created.
The developer adds, “It’s possible to make many things more realistic, but that doesn’t mean you should. You have to prioritize, and that is what’s going to separate the teams that succeed from the teams that don’t. A very deep, 20-30 hour game might need a bigger team and take three or four years.”
A number of developers have speculated that next-gen consoles will require more development resources while others have said that architectures that are similar to those of the PCs will make it easier to port titles.
The biggest current success using an episodic format is The Walking Dead from Telltale Games, but the game is a niche experience linked to adventure mechanics and not an AAA title that features a major character and universe.
Sony has stated that it wants a variety of genres and business models to be offered via the PlayStation 4.
At the moment, Hideo Kojima is working on a new Metal Gear Solid title called Ground Zeroes, which is expected to get more details later during the year and might be linked to next-gen consoles.