Are wii development costs really cheaper?

[famousringo]

outlawauron said:

famousringo said:

I agree completely. Like I said to your post in the Id thread, diversification is really the way to go.  Big publishers need to spread their projects out and they need to make some spending cuts. Small publishers need to leave HD development to the big guys who can afford to bet big while they work on Wii games, handheld games, and downloadable games.

The big HD project versus four Wii projects comparison is a little extreme. A more representative plan would be switching from two HD projects to one HD project, one Wii project, a few downloadable and handheld projects and some staff cuts.

I don't think that the Wii should monopolize development budgets, but I do think that HD has been over-represented in budgets, Wii has been under-represented, and the budgets themselves have been larger than they should be.

Are you saying here at the end that Wii budgets need to be lower?

No, that would contradict the part right before where I say they need to spend more on Wii development.

I'm saying that as a whole, publishers are spending more money on game development and promotion than they should. Too many of them are losing too much money, and despite steady, strong growth in the gaming market, it's obvious that their budgets have balooned faster than their revenues. They need to either cut, or at least freeze how much they spend until the revenues catch up.