theRepublic - Yet if any other company used 1 engine, and stuck with it, costs would be similar to what Epic spent on Gears of War 1 & 2.
Was familiarity an advantage? Yes. Was the fact it's their engine an advantage? Yes.
But it's not like every other company couldn't have the same advantages of developing cost-cutting solutions for in-house engines.
The issue is that using custom solutions for any, and every, blockbuster is a very wasteful practice, when you throw it away immediately after your done with the project.
I'll go on record to say that a game like Killzone 2 is an absolute waste of Sony's money if the developer never sells, or re-uses the engine made for KZ2. Same goes for every big, $30m+ game. You can't spend that much money and not use the assets for something else, if you believe the industry is blockbuster driven.
The solution? Scale down. There's a reason that XBLA games are very profitable.
The burden of fault relies entirely on publishers and developers that think that having a very top-heavy blockbuster portfolio is the best way to do business, it's not. For every Call of Duty, there's a Hour of Victory.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
