Could the PS3 be promoting Natural Selection in games?

Keith Stuart certainly thinks so. According to Stuart, the high price to develop for the PS3 will prevent game companies from churning out recycled muck and low-budget, low-quality games.

"This isn't a catalogue of disastrous extinctions, it is natural selection. PS3 is monstrously expensive and not particularly straightforward to develop for, so it turns out publishers are going to have to be extremely careful about what they fund. In the PS2 days, it was financially viable, indeed worthwhile, to follow a big genre title with several mediocre wannabes - the budgets were manageable and a large audience was there to lap up the effluent. But on PS3 we're talking millions and millions of dollars for even the most wretched of GTA or Final Fantasy rip-offs. And at least for the first few months, the market won't be big enough to support them, because there won't be enough machines in circulation."

Head on over to his blog to read the whole thing.