I think it's a bad side-effect of HD graphics. To make a game look any good on the Ps3, a HUGE chunk of the cost of the game has to be dedicated to graphics. It's kinda like the cost per hour. How much money it takes a developer to make fantastic HD graphics for 1 hour of gameplay. I guarantee it's 10x the cost of the previous generation and probably takes 5x longer to make. Since game companies are about making money and releasing as many products as possible, and they only have a certain time-frame to do it, it's only logical games would get shorter cause more of thier time-frame is being spent of graphics. Unless of course you are willing to wait 2+ years for a game or just get constant delays.
This is EXACTLY why i prefer the Wii. I'll get a Ps3 this yr no doubt, but since the Wii is overclocked GC hardware that developers are already familiar with, they can churn out better-than-last-gen graphics in a shorter amount of time and have more budget/time to make the game longer. Zelda and Metroid Prime 3 are both 35+ hour games, in fact most of the games i own take more than 20 hours to finish. If a game takes less than 12 hours to finish, it's a waste of money IMO.
09/03/2008
Sunshine Coast