Don’t lose sleep over it — Media Molecule says ‘Dreams’ still in development

By Garrett Hulfish Published November 1, 2017

When Sony first revealed Dreams during its E3 2015 Press Conference, it was like nothing that came before. Its painterly style was surreal, making each world a literal canvas for players to create their own. But after missing this year’s E3 and Sony’s Paris Games Week presentation, many are wondering if the game had been quietly canceled. Despite its absence, developer Media Molecule says that Dreams is very much alive.

According to the studio’s Halloween-themed Twitter account, Dreams might be coming sooner than people expect. “Congrats to all the WWS [Worldwide Studios] teams showing at PGW [Paris Games Week],” reads the post. “Those amazing trailers are getting us extra excited to share news soon.”

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Anticipated fans were quick to reply to the post, asking how much longer they will have to wait. Media Molecule responded to each fan, stating “this year” again and again.

Backing up their claims was Sony’s senior vice president of Worldwide Studios, Michael Denny. “It is still in development and it is still very, very exciting,” Denny said in a statement to VG247. “It’s going to be massive, it’s incredible, we’ve shown lots of it before. When we come back with it again — that will be fairly soon, without putting any dates on it — it’s going to blow people away.”

Media Molecule’s last game was Tearaway: Unfolded for the PS4. Just as whimsical as when it first appeared on the PlayStation Vita, Tearaway takes players into a papercraft wonderland. Both versions of the game take full advantage of the platform. On Vita, players push their finger through the back touchscreen, take pictures, and cut out shapes to stick to their character. The PS4 offers a companion app for cutting out shapes, but also uses the controller to light up dark areas.

With Dreams, the studio fully embraces the creative side of their past games. Everything from the ground to the characters can be created and animated from scratch. Such a robust creative system can be overwhelming to new players, so it’s no wonder that they are taking their time. If the developers really expect to share more before the end of the year, then Sony’s PlayStation Experience 2017 would be the next likely place.

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"No," the spokesperson said when Digital Trends asked if this is a new standard. "We determine the suggested retail price for any Nintendo product on a case-by-case basis."
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The price is right
Nintendo claims that not every one of its significant first-party game will be $70, and we can actually already see that in action. Preorders just went live for Pikmin 4, which launches on July 21, after Tears of the Kingdom, and it only costs $60. Still, Zelda's price tag indicates that going forward, Nintendo will at least consider raising the price of its most anticipated games to $70. But why start with Tears of the Kingdom?
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"If you are going to make a game $70, it's going to be the follow-up to one of your most critically acclaimed and bestselling games ever," Jijiashvili tells Digital Trends. "I don’t think that this means that $70 will become the standard price for all major Nintendo releases. It's worth noting that Metroid Prime Remastered is priced at $40. It's clear that Nintendo will remain flexible about first-party title pricing."

It makes basic financial sense for Nintendo to ask for a little bit more for a game it knows will be one of the biggest releases of 2023. But what factors in the game industry and world's economy at large caused Nintendo to make this decision?
Priced Out
For more than a decade, people got comfortable with AAA video games being priced at $60. Of course, there were occasional exceptions to this rule, but it was seen as an industry standard until the dawn of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Publisher 2K was one of the first to announce a price increase, and companies like EA, Sony, and Microsoft have all followed suit. Jijiashvili chalks this up to inflation-related pressure on game publishers.
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Jijiashvili provided us with a graphic created by Omdia that "shows what the typical price points for each generation would look like if you adjusted for inflation." As you can see, the inflation-adjusted prices are only exponentially growing, and the big game pricing shifts the graph highlights were all technically not even enough to keep up with inflation when they happened.

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