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jammy2211 on 04 February 2009
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HappySqurriel said:
jammy2211 said:
HappySqurriel said:
jammy2211 said:
I'm still skeptical if this 1/3 cost or whatever is really just art assets, sure it's a heavy asset but just in terms of scope and scale of the projects they're comparing, I'd say just the size of the game in general. We're compairing stuff like Dead Space / Burnout Paradise / Battlefield Bad Company to MySims, Boom Blox and N-Nerf Strike. I know he said it's not because they're shovalware... but he was hardly going to say otherwise?

Wii developement will always be cheaper but I think the 'third' figure isn't just art assets.

For the most part it is just for the added artwork ...

One part of it is that graphical assets require more work to produce the added detail and to produce the data necessary for the texture effects, another part of it is that the same environments require more assets to be produced so they don't look as barren, and you also need to produce even more artistic assets because people are more likely to notice repetition.

Basically, the closer you get to having individual items match reality the more you need your environments to match reality to preserve immersion in the game. While walking into an office with a desk, chair, computer and trash can worked really well on the Playstation it would seem amazingly barren if it was the environment in a PS3 game ... At the same time, if the desk used at a loading dock was the same as the desk used for the CEO few people would notice on the N64, and it would stick out like a sore thumb on an XBox 360 game.

 

 I don't see how people can think it's just added art, and if it is, the type of game still governs the amount of art work you're going to spend on. Something like Burnout or Dead Space are in these vast open environments, they're huge epic games with a large scope, of course art costs more, partly cause it's HD, partly due to the nature of the game.

 Making something like Boom Blox on PS360 wouldn't cost anywhere near as much as a Dead Space or Mass Effect, and equally making a game with the scope of Dead Space on the Wii would cost alot more then most of EA's 'lesser title' range. Wii is cheaper due to art assets, anyone who denies that is an idiot, however whether it's the governing factor or because the very nature of most Wii games is that they'll be cheaper, I'm not so sure.

 EA need to make more Wii games, everyone does, i'm just not sure what sort of games these are really going to be, albeit I'm sure most of them won't appeal to me.

 

You're right, Making Boom Blox or MySims for the HD consoles probably wouldn't cost nearly as much as a game like Dead Space but (at the same time) these games also don't cost nearly as much to develop as games that are similar to Dead Space or Burnout cost to develop for the Wii ... and they would cost several times as much to develop for HD consoles if they decided to make the artistic assets take advantage of the hardware available.

 

Now, there has always been the option to not take advantage of the hardware available (after all, there were several low budget 2D games on the PS2 which were similar to NeoGeo games) but this is not a very viable strategy on the HD consoles because people bought those systems primarily because of their graphical capabilities.

 

 

 That's pretty much what I'm saying.

 The point being, there is the option on the Wii to skimp on the graphics, cut out some of the scope and release a 'lesser' game because they can get away with it. Why spend $8 million developing a Wii game when you can develope it for half that? Would it sell more? Would it sell double? Third parties seem to think the answer to this question is 'no' and I don't think anyone can really answer that question, even with proper sales figures avaliable.