>>714779182
>From all reports, both DS games are actually pretty well scoped and not money sinks with budgets around the 100m mark which isn't small but isn't outrageous like a lot of AAA junk

That's the power of good management and not treating your employees like shit. Kojima not only works with the best talent in the industry, they actually stick around. Just look at how many of his coworkers followed him when he left Konami, legitmately unprecedented. People clearly love working for Kojima. Compare this to Naughty Dog, which is infamous for terrible management and burning through employees. Last of Us Part 2 had a budget of at least 220 million dollars, probably more. Naughty Dog's reputation is so terrible in the game industry that they actually had to hire CGI movie artists as animators, because industry talent literally avoid ND like the plague.

Basically if you hire talented individuals, you don't need to hire 100 retards to do the same job, which also costs more. But that also requires treating employees like human beings.