That's not insane at all... Remember a game called shenmue? 70 million dollar budget and it's ten years old.

Heck, MGS2 had a budget of 30 million back in 2001. GTA SA had a budget larger than that... 15 million is not a top tier budget. It's not a low budget but I'd put it somewhere in the middle of the two...The fact that it is Nintendo biggest budget game tells me that their average game is in the upper low/ lower medium budget range. Nintendo games are certainly not what I would classify among the top-tier high budget games.

"Naughty Dog boss Evan Wells said today that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has the sort of budget most developers only dream of.

The first Uncharted cost $20 million. Wells isn’t about to be short-changed for the sequel, apparently."

Uncharted 2 was one of the most expensive recent HD productions from SONY and it came years after Galaxy. I dont think you could qualify fairly Galaxy at any sort of mid level.Is high and thats . And we can be sure Zelda is gonna be more expensive than Galaxy 1 was, its often a bigger, meaner game. Most HD devs dream of 20mil and certainly rarely hope of getting 15 mil. For SD consoles, is insane.

I hope they make the game more action based and packed with extra items and side quests.

Most of the fun in twlight princess came from killing enemies with the wii remote. It felt epic. Like I was actually swinging a sword. Imagine what they will do with motion +
Also puzzles suck

Most developers DREAM of a 20 million budget because it is LOW.

Like I said, 50+ million is a top-tier budget. We have had a number SD games last generation ranging from 30-70 milion in budget. 15 milion issn't a high budget. It's a mid level budget. It doesn't even come close to some of the biggest gaming budgets out there, SD or HD.

Surprise: Zelda Wii will be ported to PS3 and XBOX360 to achieve maximun sales. Oh, the Wii version will be severily downgraded comparded to the HD versions.

Do you remember how long MGS2 and Shenmue were in development for, though? Shenmue in particular.

It seems some of you have no idea what factors are involved in a video games budget.

Time x staff x average salary = budget.

If you take 4 years with 50 people with an average salary $70,000 you get a budget of $14,000,000. If your game, HD or SD takes 200 employees (avg salary the same) 5 years to make it will cost $70 million.

You also have to understand that many publicly announced budgets may include the marketing budget which can double or triple the total budget.

Then you have licensing costs for many titles that can tack on several million.

Some games count the time and money used to build the game engine...some games license a game engine or already have one built.


$30-70 million last generation were aberrations for games that should never be used as an indicator for what a video game budget should be. Those titles wasted away development years due to rebuilds and over-management.

"surprise!!!we were just kidding, there is no new Zelda game!!"

in all seriousness, i expect some huge changes in gameplay, presentation, and the world in general. a larger, more open world (please), MAYBE voice acting, more visceral combat.

You kind of cut it out from under me, but I was leading up to the point that Nintendo are probably just a lot more efficient with their resources than almost any other developer, and that budget is not a good indicator of content for Nintendo games.

I like it as long as it still feels like a battle rather than a puzzle. Ocarina of Time and especially Link to the Past got this down pat. Majora's Mask did it will too. The boss fights in TP were awesome, but they felt a little less... combat-y

Go play LttP, you! It's better than whatever you're playing now!