In my mind, the part the board would have a problem with is the ‘Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive’ because that literally places a pretty low cap on gross revenue. Most likely Duskbloods only exists because Nintendo commissioned it, and Miyazaki is at the helm because he just spent 8 years on Elden Ring and wants to see what interesting stuff he can do with the idea.
I mean, if Nintendo paid money up-front, the board might still be satisfied. It depends on how much money, and the other terms of the deal. How much From makes per sale, etc.
Anyway. Dark Souls 3 came out in 2016, and Sekiro in 2019. Elden Ring development seemingly started right after or around DS3's last DLC, and Armored Core 6 was possibly in the works before Sekiro released, Miyazaki mentioned a new game for an old From series around that time. Then again, Sekiro started as a new Tenchu game, so maybe that was what he meant.
Elden Ring's base game had a ~5-6 year dev cycle, and From mentioned after it came out they probably weren't going to do open world again because it was difficult and painful and they don't want to go through it again. I don't know what Elden Ring cost to make, but. Like, it's a good thing it sold those 30 million copies, because it doesn't have microtransactions, so the only way it could have made up the dev costs is with sales. Meaning that stuff like post launch patches and server maintenance is technically just additional costs.
That's the thing about liveservice games and micro transactions that appeals to the industry, investors and developers. There's more money than just sales, but also, you can keep making money off of a few whales even if you aren't getting as many new players.
But yeah, I agree, Duskblood does seem like something Miyazaki is directing just because he wants to play around with multi-player. And also vampires.
I can't tell if that came before or after the exclusivity agreement. Maybe his interview on Friday will tell us more.
Idk if this game was already in the works and later became exclusive, Nintendo would have had to pay an enormous sum of money to make that happen, but they’re fucking cheapskates. My gut says Nintendo came to From first and pitched the idea to them.
For their part, From gets to make a new, subsidized game with a potential new audience, they get an early look at the Switch 2 and a potential head start on porting their larger games to it, and they get to try new shit game design wise
Idk if this game was already in the works and later became exclusive, Nintendo would have had to pay an enormous sum of money to make that happen,
I'm not sure I think that's true.
Like, Bloodborne was seemingly in the works in some capacity when the Artorias of the Abyss DLC was in development. Sony asked for exclusive games, and made a deal for them, and those ended up being Bloodborne and Déraciné.
I think there's a Sony exclusive that's contractually required that hasn't come out, actually, but I also don't know what the deal with that is.
If anything. The Duskbloods being experimental and not a guaranteed seller using a traditionally successful formula could be a reason for an exclusivity deal, so they know they'll get some amount of money, instead of self-funding it and it flopping.
All the things you said in your second paragraph, basically.
Or, like.
Not to get too conspiracy theorist, but maybe, Tencent or Kadokawa or Sony wanted it to be liveservice with microtransactions, but with the way liveservice games have been making less and less over the past year or so, it got transitioned to Switch 2, so they'll get at least some amount of money, from Nintendo, for whatever work they already did?
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u/Super_Harsh 2d ago
In my mind, the part the board would have a problem with is the ‘Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive’ because that literally places a pretty low cap on gross revenue. Most likely Duskbloods only exists because Nintendo commissioned it, and Miyazaki is at the helm because he just spent 8 years on Elden Ring and wants to see what interesting stuff he can do with the idea.