Developers actually tend to use middleware on all the new consoles - it's the middleware developers who wear-hide most of the complexity , the Main cost of games development is probably in Graphics artists and designers, level editors , sound artists , actors , motion capture and producers rather than low level programmers who i belive constitute only a small proportion of the cost of developing a game now days. It's easier than ever for developers to get performance and compatibility from the 3 new consoles they all run PowerPC of some sort with vertex/pixel engine ,and have middleware.
This IMO had actually caused problems that there are few real programmers in gaming anymore because the (Wii/Ps3) Motion sensing inputs are not supported by the current middleware properly and the users of the engines are clueless about how to use the sensors - In other fields ie avionics they have specialists who deal exclusivly with motion , sonar , sensors while the games industry people have trouble understanding anything more complex than a joystickand it shows badly in some cases.
The other areas it shows in are the lack of new ideas in games in general they cant go outside the envelop of the middleware engines leading to many of them being same game play different bad guys -
how many games are there where the centeral play is that person walks around and simply shoots stuff probably 90% , and the only other intereactions seem to be scripted cutseens or the usual i have found a key now so i can open then next door.
Still things will improve gradually i hope 
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PS3 number 1 fan
