I think it's definitely been too long since one of these has popped up, but hopefully I'm able to kind of get back into the swing of things... While looking for a suitable topic for discussion, this idea popped up courtesy of another user, and I actually liked the idea of exploring this. Thinking about games and hardware that have been delayed, did they often end up better or worse for us? Is delaying a game a good thing, or a bad thing? And what about games that have been held in development for extremely long periods of time?
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I don't know about you guys, but I like my games to be polished and well done. For me, if it means that I have to wait another few months for them to release it, I have no problem so long as they deliver. It's like Miyamoto said: delaying something will eventually make it good, but rushing something out will make it bad.
In a way, I see Miyamoto being a bit hypocritical here, as the Nintendo 3DS project felt a bit rushed, and while it did relatively well in terms of a sales point, it comes nowhere close to the Nintendo DS in terms of success. I feel like the Nintendo 3DS was too rushed, and didn't spend enough time in development. The 3D had a sweet spot to deal with. The system had an oddly placed analog stick, and the system felt like it had too many errors, something that could have been easily fixed had it spent more time in development. Sales were pretty mediocre for the console, to the point where the price had to be dropped to get more people interested in the console. Even now, with the future release of the New Nintendo 3DS, it feels like this is where Nintendo should have started with the 3DS. There wasn't a need for a 3DS XL and Nintendo 2DS. All it does is create way too much confusion for consumers. Seriously, Nintendo, the naming convention is terrible. I'm sorry. It doesn't make your stuff sound like it's a brand new generation, but a minor upgrade or step up.
A prime example of a rushed title is Diablo III. This game spent a decade in development. The predecessor, Diablo II, was an amazing title, and fans had high expectations for the title. What Diablo III players got at launch was a complete mess - plagued with server issues, gearing problems, the implementation of an auction house that completely killed the game and its gearing mechanics, to spend time basically hunting for good deals on the auction house, a horribly bad storyline that made little sense, amongst other things. Today, Diablo III has an expansion, called Reaper of Souls, which greatly improved the game and today is one of the games I enjoy playing because the developers fixed a lot of the issues that people had been suffering with.
In another instance of a rushed game, let's look at Pokémon X and Y. The titles were announced in January of 2013, and released in October that same year. Comparing the graphics of the newer titles to that of the older ones, the difference is drastic. Sprites are fully animated, and in three dimensions. The environment looked vastly different, with a whole different view of how the game was supposed to play out. When the titles finally came out, they sold like hot cakes. After the initial euphoria of a Pokémon game died out for me, I started to realize that this title was probably one of the weakest titles in the franchise, and it felt way too rushed. Announcing a title and then telling the fans that it would be released ten months later led to big expectations, and I expected good things. What I got was a relatively lackluster plot, no real post game content, and a lack of creatures to capture for a new generation. The game got stale within a week. With the Pokémon X and Y titles, it should have spent more time in development, fixing the issues that plagued people the most - the noticeable frame rate lag when 3D was enabled in battle, or the hit-and-miss 3D effect that displayed in only a handful of areas in the environment. Let's take a look at a game or two that has spent a long time in development now.
One of the first games that comes to mind about keeping a game in development for a long time was Activision Blizzard's new MMORPG Titan. Titan spent years in development, and after god knows how many years, Blizzard recently announced that they were pulling the plug on this project because it wasn't the game that they were hoping it would be. This feels more like an extreme case, because people had high expectations and hopes for it, and then it just fell apart.
More prominently, let us take a look at two Square Enix titles that are in development and to be released in 2015 - Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy XV. With Kingdom Hearts III, there hasn't really been a true sequel that continued the story since Kingdom Hearts II appeared back on the PlayStation 2. Fans had been clamoring for the title, and only recently did the title make waves when Square Enix announced its development. The initial trailers came out and the hype was immense. I recalled even my Facebook feed exploding over the development, because the game was so widely loved (I personally couldn't attach to anything in Kingdom Hearts besides the music, but that's a whole different beast that I could spend a long time discussing...). Looking at how long the game has been held in stasis for, I think that Square Enix has a great chance of making things better and right again, because they've been straying really far from what used to make them great in the first place. They seem to have found the right track again, somewhat, with the release of a recent trailer for their Final Fantasy XV title. XV, originally Final Fantasy XIII Versus, has also been in development for a very long time now, and only now has seen a few small trailers here and there. After the debacle that was Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2 and XIII-3, which had been slammed for its relatively lackluster story and gameplay, things are finally looking up and the hype actually feels real for both of these titles. This feels like a great case of delaying a game done right. They could release it early, but it would just end up being slammed as a poor game. I really hope that they could make these two games right and bring themselves back up into a good spot.
Looking at games now, while my body could be screaming for a game to be released right this second (I'm looking at you, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire), I also know that it's definitely better if the game takes its time in being developed properly. I'd much rather see a polished gaming experience that feels whole in comparison to a rushed game that, as Miyamoto said, would be bad forever. Where do you guys stand in terms of all this? Do you guys like games to come out sooner at the price of possibly being bad, or do you guys favor the games that spend longer times in development? What do you guys define as a game that has been in development too long? Is there such a thing as too long? Let me know in your comments! Shoutout to Vengenceonu for the topic idea!