In the arcade era (Pac-Man, Dig-Dug), you're looking at up to 5 people working on a game. Then with home console launches, Nintendo was using closer to 8-10 people. By the N64's launch, we were seeing 30-50 people teams at Nintendo for Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time! Art and systems became so much more robust as we moved to bigger and better graphics and that didn't slow down as consoles progressed.
While I'd personally love to see assets reused as much as possible, it seems the industry has always tried to out do itself in preparation for better hardware. The design philosophies of Gunpai Yokoi (early Nintendo developer, father of the Gameboy) are proving more relevant than ever, but I believe companies like Anbernic and Retroid embodying this the best for hardware -- as are the indies! From what I've gathers, publishers are still required to have relevance in international markets, and as that barrier gets worn down, I believe we'll see more and more truly amazing developer-owned projects going forward!
In the arcade era (Pac-Man, Dig-Dug), you're looking at up to 5 people working on a game. Then with home console launches, Nintendo was using closer to 8-10 people. By the N64's launch, we were seeing 30-50 people teams at Nintendo for Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time! Art and systems became so much more robust as we moved to bigger and better graphics and that didn't slow down as consoles progressed.
While I'd personally love to see assets reused as much as possible, it seems the industry has always tried to out do itself in preparation for better hardware. The design philosophies of Gunpai Yokoi (early Nintendo developer, father of the Gameboy) are proving more relevant than ever, but I believe companies like Anbernic and Retroid embodying this the best for hardware -- as are the indies! From what I've gathers, publishers are still required to have relevance in international markets, and as that barrier gets worn down, I believe we'll see more and more truly amazing developer-owned projects going forward!