budgets of hd console games

[Brainslug]

NJ5 said:

Username2324 said:
I think Developers end up with about $30-$40 off each game, so depending on the budget, most would only have to sell 400K to break even or even walk away with some money in their wallet.

 

Really? I've heard numbers in the $15-25 range quite often. I doubt it's as high as you said, since retailers and other middlemen cut out a huge chunk.

As for the budgets, the biggest games have really big budgets like GTA4 - $100 million. MGS4 is likely more (maybe significantly more) than $50 million judging from the number of people who worked on the game and development length. Halo 3 was not that expensive, just $30 million plus the same in marketing/developer bonuses according to analysts' estimates.

More average games are around $20 million according to most reports I've seen.

I don't have the sources at hand, these figures are from memory but based on things you can probably find with google.

 

What NJ5 has for numbers is probably a lot closer to the correct one. About 50% of the price of anything you buy is retailer profit.

Off a 60$ game, that would mean that 30$ to the retailer and the other 30$ to be divided between Developper, Middle Men and royalties to the console manufacturer.