Aye, I see what you are asking with this topic, but Red Steel did it on day one. Supposedly the budget was 12 or 13 million. That's very high in regards to the Wii. If you're asking when a third party Wii game will have a budget approaching the big 360/PS3 games...I'd say never. It's just a reality that HD games are more expensive than non-HD games. If you're asking about third party games having seriously large scale/epicness to them and having enough time in the oven(not rushed out the door), FF:CC will probably be the one. Red Steel 2 is a possibility though.
I think a lot of Red Steel's budget went into the planning of the game(started planning the game in late 06, sending a team to Japan to get a true reference point for their take on the look and feel of Japan, etc), making changes midway through development as was said by another poster(as ambitious as the game was gameplay-wise, they had very little time with actual dev kits to fully realize something so intricate), they put a lot of $ into marketing the game, and by it being a more realistic looking and totally original game they had to start from scratch while pushing the Wii's visuals harder from a technical standpoint than anyone, including Nintendo with LoZ:TP. It is seriously the only game so far that has tried to squeeze some complex graphics out of the Wii. TP and RE4 look great, but both were also done on the Cube. Take all of that into account, then you can start to see how a game that tried to push the Wii in visuals and gameplay in such a short time(with no port to build from) could amass such a budget.
"I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself."
