Next-Gen Development Costs

[HappySqurriel]

I was going to give a well thought out reply but I think images will demonstrate better ... http://media.ign64.ign.com/media/012/012700/img_1259527.html http://media.ps2.ign.com/media/566/566218/img_2182650.html http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/684/684224/img_4346321.html I know most people may never have seen an artist work, but I want you to imagine how much time is spent tweeking every texture and model to make it look just right; how many more object have to be made to make the environments more believeable. Without considering the extra textures that have to be added to make the material shaders work, without understanding that every model has to be produced twice (once at an amazing level of detail) to have the normal maps produce, and without thinking about how you will have to animate as many characters sperately in order to ensure that you don't have a dance troop walking around, it becomes clear that there is a lot more work involved in producing a next generation game ... There will always be companies who scale back projects, produce episodal content, offshore work, or find some way to lower development costs; but you can't say that it is less expensive to make these games because half of the levels you would have gotten with the previous version has been left out, you're now being charged more for, or has been produced in Columbia.