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sc94597 on 16 October 2022
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Shatts said:
sc94597 said:

https://www.destructoid.com/platinum-games-to-self-publish-two-healthy-sized-games/

Speaking with GameInformer, Platinum’s head of development Atsushi Inaba has spoken of the balance the studio is trying to find between Indie-level productions and big-budget, big publisher titles. “We can’t put together a AAA, $10 million-plus game, because we just don’t have that sort of cash as an independent developer,” said Inaba. “However, we don’t plan to go the indies route with just a few people on a team making a game, so it’ll be somewhere in the middle, looking at probably about 20 people on the staff making the game, so that’ll still be a healthy (size)”.

Honestly that can mean anything. He didn't specify Bayonetta, and he probs meant $10 million is the minimum for AAA from that statement. Bayonetta is action heavy, hack and slash genre. For reference God of War III, a similar hack and slash game that released on the PS3 a year after Bayonetta 1 costed $44 million to make. I highly doubt Bayonetta is a $10 million game but I have no decisive evidence either. 

1. God of War was a long established franchise by the time III released. 

2. It was one of Sony's top IP's and its prequels sold very well on the PS2.

3. Bayonetta was a new IP pushed by a new independent developer. Bayonetta 2 was a revived IP given a second chance to prove itself. 

4. Platinum games is somewhat smaller than Santa Monica studios, and had multiple titles in development at the same time as Bayonetta 1 and 2. Development costs are primarily labor costs. 

5. AAA titles worked on by Platinun Games tend to just barely break the "AAA" barrier. Nier Automata was considered a financial success when it broke the 1 million sales barrier and that game definitely has a bigger budget than Bayonetta 2. 

$10-15 million for development and a few more for Nintendo's anemic marketing sounds about right. But even if it were $20-$25 million, with 1.9 million sales Nintendo definitely made a healthy profit.