During a panel at the 2015 DICE Summit, Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President, Shuhei Yoshida spoke about the current state of industry and his take on annual franchises.
There is no surprise that we are seeing more and more games turned into annual franchise with each year. Games like Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, FIFA, and Need for Speed (to some extent) are released every year. Popular video game developer and publisher, Ubisoft has a thing for annualizing franchises.
The studio does not care to work on a new IP unless it plans on making a franchise out of it, as stated by a representative.
Shuhei Yoshida, on the other hand, noted that he ‘hates’ annual franchises. Speaking of his experience at Sony, he stated that during the early days of Playstation, sequels were considered as a waste that rarely rose to standard created by the original game.
He believes that the Marketing Executives fail to understand the development processes which lead them to draw comparisons to annual franchises like COD and FIFA. To sum it up, Yoshida believes that annual franchises are far from profitable.
What is your take on this? Do you believe titles like Call of Duty, FIFA, and Assassin’s Creed need to take a break? Let us know in the discussion box below!
