Games Four to Six Years PS5 Industry 1
Image: Push Square

If you’ve been wondering what the likes of Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch are up to, then here’s a worrying observation from Microsoft’s Matt Booty: tentpole titles may take four to six years to develop on new-gen consoles, as opposed to the two to three years that was common previously. While the executive was, understandably, referring to Xbox’s own pipeline, it’s not hard to imagine a similar shift will occur with Sony’s first-party, as well as third-party teams.

“I think that the industry and the fans were a little behind the curve on sort of a reset to understand that games aren't two or three years anymore,” he told the Axios newsletter, adding that major AAA projects will now take anywhere from four years to six years to create. “There are higher expectations. The level of fidelity that we're able to deliver just goes up.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean all games will take that long to create – and Booty even acknowledged that smaller projects from efficient indies teams can be built in a year or less. But these comments do perhaps offer some perspective on why Sony’s first-party lineup is looking so light right now: major titles are taking longer to develop than ever before. It’ll be interesting to see how the Japanese giant navigates these issues, and how it intends to pad out its schedule and fill in the gaps.

[source axios.com]