Nintendo recently confirmed that the Super Smash Bros. 4 release date for Wii U and 3DS will indeed be sometime this year, but why is it taking so long?
A fan asked the game’s creator Masahiro Sakurai why game development seems to take longer in Japan than in other countries.
Sakurai responded in his semi-weekly column in the Weekly Famitsu:
“Whether it’s domestic or international, development speed is a case-by-case scenario, so I feel this may be a biased opinion. I think the Yakuza team is quite fast considering the scale of their games, and some foreign games can take over 5 years from initial proposal to the actual product release.
“However, the fact that someone asks this does seem to indicate that it’s not completely unfounded. If I were to guess, it seems that foreign studios have the appearance of a stricter product schedule and organization. Then again, in some cases, even if the development period is long, the development staff can be small, so the entire picture is a mystery.
“Also, the time between announcement and release does not necessarily equal the development period. In most cases, when development actually started is never publicly announced.
“In any case, whether it’s cost-effective or not is what’s important. Whether the development period is long or short, the real questions is if the man-hours spent can bring about a profit or results. Of course, this is also a case-by-case scenario.”
Sakurai has been working so hard on the upcoming game that both of his arms have developed inflammatory symptoms that make work--and playing Super Smash Bros--difficult, reported Kotaku.
Super Smash Bros. 4 will include multiple new characters, including the latest to be announced--Little Mac from Punch-out.
