Traditionally, if a game sold a million copies or more, it was almost always a definite success. Barring higher budget titles such as Shenmue, million sellers were profitable for their companies and notable as chart toppers. However, as development budget costs have increased exponentially in recent years, million seller status is no longer a guarantee for success. Several million-selling titles or franchises this generation have cost their publishers sums in the billions. With this in mind, does a million seller still carry significance in today's gaming industry?

It depends on the game I think! It's not the same to do a handheld game than to do a console game! But yeah costs have risen a lot this gen .

Depends on how the developer handles their budget. Some just blow their load and dont know how to stick to a reasonable budget.
Uncharted 2 is reported to have cost around 20 million. The game at the time had the best values, long enough gameplay and online.

I think whats bringing the budget up for a lot of these games is making and porting it to 1000 platforms. People seem to think porting a game is cheap. Sometimes a game really is not worth the port.

Well they are successes in popularity in my eyes which still counts for something. As for budget we wont know unless the publisher/developer says something.

I think that in previous gens (especially the 6th gen), it was profitable for publishers to release a game on any platforms as possible. Even if your game didn't sell well enough on the Gamecube or Xbox to be profitable, it might have sold well enough on the PS2 to be profitable overall. Development costs were so low that publishers could take that risk. Now that is definitely not the case. It should have been obvious to THQ (and everyone else) that uDraw was not going to be a success on the PS3 and 360, and there are dozens of other examples of disadvantageous multiplatform games this gen.

today it seems like 2 million has become the new base market per system

I think a million seller is still a significant milestone, as I enjoy many games that cannot even reach that. Yet the developers keep making these games that do not reach 1 million over the years. If these games that I enjoy did make it to 1 million it would be seen as a huge success.

On the other hand their is BS like L.A. Noire that sells tons and somehow the developers cannot continue.

The sad thing is that I seem to remember a couple 5 million selling PS3/360 games being money sinks. Last gen publishers could cut their losses with Wii/DS games, but they don't have that luxury now.

I think reaching 1 million has become a success for indie games and the few middle end software that still exist. Practically all AAA stuff need much more than 1 million sales in order to be successful. 

:(