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Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé says he is somewhat concerned with a lack of innovation within the industry from major games.
Thanks to the budgets for an average AAA release constantly getting bigger and bigger, you tend to see companies go with the safe bets far more often. Where a studio like Insomniac Games has a ton of interesting titles under its belt, with how successful the Marvel's Spider-Man games are, most expect the studio to be in the Marvel mines for the foreseeable future, with maybe a Ratchet and Clank bone thrown our way every so often.
Speaking to The Game Business, Fils-Aimé notes that with fewer blockbuster games arriving and the differences between generations being far more minimal, he hopes "that this industry doesn't stagnate."
Fils-Aimé explains: "There are, at times, signs that the innovation isn't there. The breakthrough new type of content seems to be a little bit further and far between. That concerns me, and I hope that doesn't stop."
He adds that over the last 10 years, "a lot of the innovation has come from the smaller, independent developer" and – from speaking to these developers – he notes that "what drives them is creating something new and different."
Even so, for AAA developers, safe bets are a far more appealing prospect when something costs so much, something that former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida recently pointed out.
