There's no question that the videogame industry is changing. Faust brings up a good point with how much bigger the portable console market has gotten in the last ten years. In fact, I would go so far as to say the growth of the portables is the single biggest trend gaming has seen this decade. Bigger than high-def gaming, downloadable content, and motion controllers. It may very well be a push by developers to tone down the ever-increasing production costs of games demanded on high-end consoles. From a business standpoint, that's smart - at least in the short term.
I have to say, though, I'm not optimistic that an independent developer can bring a high-quality storytelling experience to a portable console. For one thing, playing that kind of game on a portable would be extremely uncomfortable. (RPGs are supposed to consume entire evenings, not 30-minute chunks.) And secondly, they would run into the same problems that the big developers experienced with the previous generation of hardware. The technical limitations would make it very difficult to raise the bar. Voice-overs take up memory that could be devoted to other aspects of the game, including the script. You can have superb writing, but without quality voice actors to bring the script to life, you would be left with a silent RPG of the PS1 era. The majority of gamers have moved on since then and expect a fuller experience. A new silent RPG would appeal to only a niche audience.
Back to the issue of change, the fundamental question to ask is if the path of that change is sustainable. Sometimes a change that seems perfectly reasonable at the time can lead to serious problems down the road. Sometimes a change can create short-term financial conditions that are so appealing to game companies that they decide further change is not needed. That can lead to stagnation, which was my argument for bringing up the 1984 example. Gaming has evolved drastically since then, but it is by no means immune to an industry-wide downturn. If you can equate the gaming crash of 1984 to the Great Depression, then a future downturn could be equated to the great recession of today - not as catastrophic, but still painful. And as was the case with this recession, there are going to be casualties. It is too difficult to predict what gamers are really going to want in the years to come, but one thing is clear: the companies that give the gamers what they want are going to survive and flourish, and the companies that don't are going to wither and die.
So the question, for Chrono Trigger, becomes one of increasing mass-market appeal to the point where Square/Enix would have to consider releasing an update to their beloved franchise to counter gamer apathy about the future state of gaming - if such a downturn comes about. (This is where the Compendium comes in.)
A future discussion between S/E executives might go something like this:
Exec A: "The market is really down right now, but we need to come up with something new in order to maintain marketshare. Any ideas?"
Exec B: "We can't do it. It would take up to five years to create a breakthrough product. The financial risk is too great."
Exec C: "I agree. Five years is too long to work on anything. A lot can change in that timeframe. We should just do what we're doing now and ride out this storm until attitudes change."
Exec A: "But Final Fantasy XV has sold well below expectations. Metacritic gave it only a 74. Attitudes are turning against us right now. What is to be done?"
Exec B: (dismissively) "Those reviewers are old men who are stuck in the past. They've had it out for us for years. Their scores mean nothing."
Exec D: "Old men or not, the sales figures have been consistent with their scores. Marketing tells me our target demographic is also disappointed with the game."
Exec C: "You are being defeatist! 74 out of 100 is still a majority in our favor. There is no need for anxiety. We are still making money."
Exec A: "But the trend is moving unmistakably downward. If our flagship title cannot do any better than this, what will it mean for our smaller projects? We may very well be at a crossroads where staying the course is the long road to failure."
Exec D: "Then we should take the other route and try something else while we're still able to."
Exec B: "And where do you propose to get the money? You've seen the reports from our development department heads. We can't launch a new flagship product in anything less than five years. Pre-production alone would take almost two."
Exec C: (nods) "The board would never approve it. We need quicker sources of income."
Exec D: (thinks about it) "What about Chrono Trigger?"
Exec B: "Are you daft? We already did that on the DS, and there's still a market for that old relic. We can't sell a 20-year-old game on a modern portable for anything more than $20. The board would laugh us out of the room!"
Exec D: "I mean do it for the PS4."
Exec C: (laughs) "You've been surfing around those fan sites too much!"
Exec D: "Actually, it may be quite feasible. It's an already existing property that has a well-established storyline. Pre-production time would be greatly lessened if the developer didn't have to start over from scratch. We could make the game in four years instead of five."
Exec A: "I don't know. A lot would have to be changed to remake that game on a modern system. Players would expect a greatly expanded experience. The pre-production time may be greater than you realize."
Exec D: "Perhaps not. The fan community has already expanded the world of Chrono far beyond its original vision. What if Kato-san incorporated some of their ideas to the game in addition to his own? We might release the game in
under four years."
Exec B: (derisively) "So we are to put our fortunes into the hands of
amateurs?! What do they know about videogame design? We are wasting time even talking about this crackpot idea!"
Exec A: (thinks about it) "Let us bring in Kato-san and see what he thinks."
(Of course, I'm being
very optimistic here.)
