theRepublic said:
This is much less of a problem on the Wii. There are plenty of smaller budget, innovative projects on the Wii. I don't see many of those on the 360 or PS3. As it currently stands, the technology in the 360 and PS3 has outpaced the business model of the industry. The people who own these systems demand amazing, realistic graphics for every game. That doesn't make sense. Not every game can be a multi-million dollar production. There needs to be middle and lower end games for every console. |
You're totally missing the whole point of everything the OP's article cites and anything I said. It's 2am here and I have to get up early so I'm going to bed but I'll try leave you with the simplest way of explaining what the article is saying.
In short, companies will always strive to have more and more successful projects, it's an evident trend in gaming for all it's exsistance. Traditionally this involved better graphics, more impressive tech etc. Wii has changed the focus somewhat, instead to have a huge behemoth seller the money needs to be pumped into market research and actual marketing. IT's still huge amounts of money and as the industry always does, it's inevitable that soon Wii projects will be huge $20 million+ total budget 'gambles' as the likes of EA and Activision use the same strategies that got them to the global gaming companies they've always used.
The money Nintendo spend marketing their games is probably far above an 'average' PS360 games total budget for marketing and dev costs etc, I've got no real source on figures aside from Wii Fit's $40 million advertising in just the USA though. Nintendo can afford it though, cause every advert sells them consoles, and they don't have to pay royalties leading to bigger profits etc.
The only reason it's not so evident yet is the market is new territory and EA and Activision and any of the big players don't know how to make these investments successful. They'll figure it out though, and then budgets will increase, lesser known software will be ignored and gaming costs go up just as they always do.
To be honest I'd imagine that post was a bit of a mish-mash as I was trying to make brief something which needs a long explanation (Which the OP provided but seemed to go over your head somewhat 0_o). I'll get back to this tommorow if it's not too long for me to give up reading, definitely a great article though.