Playstation 4 Release Date Rumors: PS4, Xbox Threatens Future Of Games, Does Sony And Microsoft Game Development Cost Too Much?

The releases of Playstation 4 and Xbox One have been in the minds of millions of gamers across the world, but some say the advanced technologies both consoles contain could make it harder for Sony and Microsoft to pay for video game development.

As a result of the increasing cost of game development, there might be less variety in games and a smaller number of them might be produced on an annual basis.

"The PS4 and Xbox One will bring us everything we expect: better graphics, more complex engines, more sprawling games, more detailed characters and new hardware ... the only catch is that all of this will be very, very expensive, for the consumers, sure, but mostly for the developers," wrote one Forbes gaming contributor.

"As excited as I am about what my favorite companies might do with that horsepower, I'm worried about what it will mean for the industry as a whole."

In fact, game cost development for the PS4 will be anywhere from five to ten percent more expensive to than it was last year, Joystiq, AOL's video gaming blog, reports.  

But Sony isn't the only company announcing price hikes in video game development. Microsoft, who works closely with EA Games for development, is also raising the price of their video game production costs.

"Overall you might see larger titles or larger costs because of the capability that you can deal with, but we'll also see larger revenue streams, we believe, because of the excitement around some of those big titles," EA Games CFO Blake Jorgensen told Joystiq.

"We haven't yet set pricing on our gen four [games], but you'll probably see a similar trend to that during the start of the next cycle."