Are wii development costs really cheaper?

[mike_intellivision]

Pristine20 said:

mike_intellivision said:
I will post this again:

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/02/04/more-wii-games-from-ea-thanks-to-low-development-costs/

As it is a recent news story where EA notes the lower costs of developing for the Wii. There is even a link to a 2009 story citing the one-third/one-quarter ratio.

I find it amazing how some people cannot accept the words of experts. In other words, I think EA would know more about development costs than at least 90 percent of the posters on here.


Mike from Morgantown

 

If we compare EA's efforts on the wii to their efforts on PS360, it's pretty obvious why this is the case. If they made fresh dead space that actually pushes the performance of the wii like it did the PS360, I'd like to see how much that costs. No one held them in a chokehold forcing them to optimize the graphical capabilities of PS360's dead space. You can't just compare Dead Space to bloom blox and use that as an argument. Dead Space even got minor advertising on game sites while bloom blox got nothing.

I was just quoting what EA said.

It is one of the more recent in a long line of statements made by developers relating to the cost of making games being less on the Wii than on the PS3 and Xbox 360. (I cited a couple from 2006 earlier in this thread when I originally referenced the EA quote but no one paid any attention to them).

Now what I cannot answer is whether it is cheaper to develop on the Wii because developers are mailing it in or because it does not have HD-quality graphics which require additional development effort.   While there have been cases of the former, I am sure that for most titles from top tier development houses, the real reason is the latter.

And before you start talking about game quality, I will fully and freely admit that the PS3 and Xbox 360 can do things that the Wii cannot. Capcom's attempt at porting over Dead Rising shows the limits of the Wii (and of Capcom's imagaination, but that is for another post). 

To put it in perspective, no one in their right mind says that an 486 can deliver the same impact as a P4. But the program on the 486 costs less because it can do less. While the difference between the Wii and the HD consoles is not nearly as much as between pre and post Pentium computers, the analogy still stands.

 

Mike from Morgantown

 

Be happy with your gaming choices or buy new ones.