As you see, the publisher with the most consistent and best overall ranking is CAPCOM.
They may not have the most releases each year, but they are the most consistent regarding the critical reception.
SEGA is the second best ranked publisher regarding the critical reception and has almost twice as much distinct game releases each year in comparison to CAPCOM.
The third place regarding the critical reception goes to SQUARE ENIX and they even release a few more titles each year in comparison to SEGA.
Fourth is BANDAI NAMCO and the last place goes to KOEI Tecmo.
If we go by these metrics, CAPCOM would be the best choice regarding the critical reception and SQUARE ENIX if we choose pure game releases.
If you want the best of both worlds, then SEGA would be the best choice.
Personally, i would echo the wish of Shpeshal Nick and would go for CAPCOM and SEGA.
FF14 expansions have been going from strength to strength from what I gather? Warcraft still brings hundreds of millions of revenue every year, still relevant though not as big as it was at its peak around 2010 or so. But the franchise started almost 30 years ago at this point.
I don’t know. People are clamoring for the next Elder Scrolls (debut in 1994) and Fallout (1996), Metroid (1986) is still around, Pokemon (1996) is like top 5 best selling game of the year whenever a new one releases. Gamers aren’t fickle.
Agreed. I started playing games around 1995 and console and PC games looked like poo back in the day, only in the arcade did I get amazing visuals. I think only around PS2 and OG Xbox did console games start looking impressive - like Halo 1 or Splinter Cell. Late 360 era games can hold up pretty well graphically. I think physically based rendering was the last graphics evolution people will have cared about. Raytracing has the potential to be spectacular, but for the most part skillful artist can make baked lighting look good enough to the point people simply don’t care about its static nature. So indeed, good looking games from 2016 like Doom, Dishonored 2 or Uncharted 4 don’t feel dated, particularly when running on PC that can support high resolutions and framerates.
The funny thing is that ‘retro’ looking modern games can look amazing even when they’re stylized to feel like a SNES or PS1 era game. Eg. Signalis looks spectacular, it has effects that would fry PS1, yet it feels like a PS1 era Resident Evil game.
Well said about games taking longer to make and not chasing after games that are popular now.
Yet instead making something that is unique and different instead.
For every success be it World of Warcraft or Fortnight you have many companies that have financial failure or go bankrupt because they wanted to be the next game like that, instead of being their own thing.
Take what you said about Suicide Squad and every time it is shown people complain it looks boring, take issue the Justice League is evil or that Rocksteady could have made a normal game that didn’t take nine years to make.
I hate to bring it up, but even Fable had an identity crisis, because the execs wanted to turn it into a game as a service type of game and when it failed to live up to the standards it was known for Lionhead was closed, now over a decade later a new Fable is in development.
So hopefully both executives and game developers will stop chasing trends and just put out interesting, fun games instead.
If possible and they accept, I see Microsoft acquiring Capcom because Nick made a good point on the podcast yesterday. Capcom has Street Fighter. ABK will include MLG which is all that esports stuff. So they would then have COD and SF while also hurting EVO which Sony owns.
Sega I think happens before the generation ends regardless of what happens with Capcom.
I’m going with Certain Affinity.
I disagree with staying away from Iron Galaxy. I’m not a fighting genre fan or anything but they did a great job with Killer Instinct season two and season three. Under Microsoft, they would have more money and resources at their disposal. Most of all, they would have more time. Porting a game is a contract and thus, they have a “time limit/frame” on the contract as to when it’s expected to finish. Acquire Iron Galaxy and they now have their fighting game studio.
I disagree with this in regards to them improving in order to be taken seriously. I think they should be acquired now while they’re cheaper and “down” because then, the lower acquisition cost would make the massive employee count not look as bad and by the time it does, Ubisoft will be back on track.
Somethings tells me that we shouldnt expect a Capcom acquisition by anyone anytime soon. Usually companies that sell are in bad conditions either culturally or profitably and Capcom so far is neither.
Still think WBD is the next company since its expected to be sold to someone in a fee years and MS and definetly a buyer.
Capcom may consider selling this time because its value is historically high. When the remakes end and they have to risk creating new IPs like in the 360 era, their value will only go down.
