megaman79 said:
puffy said:
Groucho said:
averyblund said:
theRepublic said:
Let's look at it in an apples to apples comparison:
Killzone 2 is an exclusive FPS for the PS3. It is designed to push the console to its graphical limits as much as possible. Its development costs are rumored to be $60 million.
The Conduit is an exclusive FPS for the Wii. It is designed to push the console to its graphical limits as much as possible. I can't find anything on its development costs. Does anyone think it even comes close to $60 million? |
8 million tops, I would bet more like 3-4. SMG was being developed for years by some of the top programmers in the world and only cost 15 or so.
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3-4M for the Conduit? You realize that 100K/employee/year is the standard, right? 15-20 employees for 2 years then on the Conduit? And of course they get their motion capture, etc. for free, right? Mocap studios love giving time for free.
Lets use GTA4 again as an example, while we're at it. Most of that $100M... voice acting, actor mocap, licensing. If you can't deduce it on your own, those expenses have nothing to do with platform-specific development, per se, and everything to do with ambition. GTA4 on the Wii probably would have cost $85-90M, at the least, given the same grade of resources.
Production value == cost. It has nothing to do with platform, and everything to do with project ambition. That's the last time I'll say it.
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I'd just like to point out that High Voltage Software owns a Mocap studio so scratch those costs.
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Puffy, You created a monster here lol. This thread could go to 10 pages
So if HVS has got a mocap studio (or green screen whatever setup) most other larger companies would have them.
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LOL yes I did.. It's been fun to watch some posters being douches and even better seeing them being put in their place by solid arguments.
I'm glad people have really thought about development in context of the big picture in this thread.. I brought the raw dev figures and others have said 'hold on, what about marketing and distribution? The maths only accounts for the break even point, what about after that?'
One more point I'd like to raise is that I believe the Wii will have HD game-like sales if the extra money is put into advertising, make a $6 million game on Wii and back it up with a $10 million marketing campaign. Think I'm crazy?
EA are spending $10 million on marketing EA Sports Active and I doubt it would have cost them more than $6 million to develop, it'd mostly be R&D costs like market research not art assets - look at Wii Fit's art assets for example.
The Wii market needs marketing for any meaningful spending to occur and I think once developers up the average budget to around $10 million and back it up with an advertising campaign between $5 and $10 million, then we'll see some third party success
