Reggie: Third parties don't "get" the Wii, more

[Esa-Petteri]

Hard data..

Average development cost for a game on a single platform is just bs. If one platform has quality game / shovelware much higher than another, average dev costs are lower! That does not make quality games any cheaper to make on that platform.

Games like nhm,boom blox or little king's story would not cost any more to develop on ps3/360 than on wii. A game like red steel costs 13 million $ to make.

http://www.n-sider.com/contentview.php?contentid=2781



I could not bother to find a lot of sources for this "wii games are cheaper to develop"-stuff. Just found one from 2006:

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/cost-of-development-greatly-favors-wii-say-publishers/69714/?biz=1

Few quotes:



"This is clearly where Nintendo's Wii has an advantage, however. According to THQ Chief Executive Brian Farrell, while an investment in an Xbox 360 or PS3 game might be in the range of $12 million to $20 million on average, the money required for developing a title on the Wii can be as little as half that (or less), with an investment generally ranging from $5 million to $8 million. "It's that order of magnitude lower," Farrell explained to Reuters."



Then you can take a look what THQ has produced on wii:

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?&results=50&name=&console=Wii&keyword=&publisher=339&genre=&order=Sales&boxart=Both&showdeleted=&region=All&alphasort=

on 360:

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?&results=50&name=&console=X360&keyword=&publisher=339&genre=&order=Sales&boxart=Both&showdeleted=&region=All&alphasort=

on ps3:

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?&results=50&name=&console=PS3&keyword=&publisher=339&genre=&order=Sales&boxart=Both&showdeleted=&region=All&alphasort=

Pay special attention on the amount of shovelware per platform. You might see why it is on average cheaper to develop on wii.



"Another third-party supporter of the Wii is Midway, which will also have four games at launch: The Ant Bully, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Happy Feet, and Rampage: Total Destruction. Part of the reason game development on the Wii is so much cheaper is that the hardware is quite similar to Nintendo's last console, even though it is a bit more powerful than the GameCube.

"When you talk about the PS3 and the Xbox 360, ramp-up costs are significant. You don't have the same ramp-up costs on the Wii because you have the tools already," Midway CEO David Zucker told Reuters. "

You can do the same for midway games, I'll just list midway's wii titles:

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?&results=50&name=&console=Wii&keyword=&publisher=225&genre=&order=Sales&boxart=Both&showdeleted=&region=All&alphasort=

Oh and not to mention, since that comment is from 2006. Is that still the same, don't you have "the tools already" on ps3/360? Yes you do = it is cheaper to develop on ps3/360 now.