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Forums - Gaming - Game development costs: Reggie says...

Avinash_Tyagi on 27 November 2007

The figures are more likely range, and no doubt some games fall outside those ranges, but it seems rather likely that Wii games cost a fraction of what games on the PS3 and 360 cost, especially since Nintendo seems to market more conservatively than its competitors



 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

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superchunk on 27 November 2007

You all are forgetting that Reggie is still about PR. He is picking the high range of dev costs for PS360 and the mid cost for Wii dev. We all know that the Wii is still less to develop for, but, whenever a pr person talks. You must take what they say with caution.



rocketpig on 27 November 2007
fkusumot said:
rocketpig said:
elnino334 said:
Lost planet was up there with something like 20 million on marketing alone. Other than that I assume MGS4 with 200 plus devs and Killzone 2 may be close if not beyond that.

But didn't Capcom state they only needed to sell ~750k copies of the game to break even? Something about Reggie's numbers just isn't computing with me...


 Did Capcom say that?


Here's the best I could find quickly:

 http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2007/01/13/lost-planet-ships-1-million/

"Capcom was hoping to sell 740,000 units for them to consider Lost Planet a success, so they must be smiling ear to ear with these sales numbers."

Considering that the site is saying the exact thing I remember Capcom saying about a year ago, it's probably pretty accurate. 




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fkusumot on 27 November 2007
Bodhesatva said:
Yojimbo said:
Twilight Princess cost more then $10 million and I am pretty sure Mario Galaxy cost much more then $10 million.

I'm with Yojimbo here.

Keep in mind we are combining development, production, and advertising costs into a single figure; I can absolutely believe that some 360/PS3 games reach in to the 40-50 million dollar range for that. What I doubt is that there aren't any Wii games that pass the 10 million mark -- surely Zelda or Mario did? Even if they didn't, what's to stop another game from having a 10+ million dollar marketing blitz, akin to Halo 3? That would obviously take it well over the stated mark.

 


I don't think Nintendo spends money on marketing.



I Blame Wii Fit!

eugene on 27 November 2007

Im pretty sure that of the 200+ xbox 360 games, less than 10 of them cost over $20 million dollars.



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FJ-Warez on 27 November 2007
eugene said:
He's talking about all the cheap shovelware on the DS and Wii (100k sales) compared to games like Halo 3. Not a fair comparison.

Maybe, but how many developers are out there with $20-$40 millions to make one single game????

 

BTW Factor 5 spend around of 24 millions to make Lair...

KZ2 could have a 40 million budget...

Gears of Wars development cost were around 10 millions (But Epic used their own engine and MS took the cost of the marketing)

And Halo 3, nobody knows for sure, but definitely MS spend a lot of money...

And Red Steel has a 10 million budget too...



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naznatips on 27 November 2007
eugene said:
Im pretty sure that of the 200+ xbox 360 games, less than 10 of them cost over $20 million dollars.

That's doubtful.  I would guess $20 million to be a solid mid-range for Xbox 360 games.  Then you have the big budgets like Halo 3 getting up near or over $50 million, and low budgets (Viva Pinata: Party Animals) hanging at more around $10 million or less.  



fkusumot on 27 November 2007
rocketpig said:
fkusumot said:
rocketpig said:
elnino334 said:
Lost planet was up there with something like 20 million on marketing alone. Other than that I assume MGS4 with 200 plus devs and Killzone 2 may be close if not beyond that.

But didn't Capcom state they only needed to sell ~750k copies of the game to break even? Something about Reggie's numbers just isn't computing with me...


Did Capcom say that?


Here's the best I could find quickly:

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2007/01/13/lost-planet-ships-1-million/

"Capcom was hoping to sell 740,000 units for them to consider Lost Planet a success, so they must be smiling ear to ear with these sales numbers."

Considering that the site is saying the exact thing I remember Capcom saying about a year ago, it's probably pretty accurate.


That's interesting. While looking for information on development costs I found this. Unfortunately it's a couple years old but it does have some comparisons for the DS and PSP.

By Aaron McKenna: Tuesday 16 August 2005, 14:21

THE Japanese Computer Entertainment Suppliers Association has reported that in Japan the Xbox is the most expensive system to develop for.

28 companies voluntarily disclosed their figures to the association, revealing that the average cost of producing an Xbox game is 202 million yen ($1.82 million) as opposed to 96 million yen ($877,000) to develop a game for the PS2, making the Xbox on average just short of $1 million more expensive to develop for.

The report also revealed that PSP and GameCube games both cost around 90 million yen ($822,000) to develop, while Game Boy Advance titles generally cost about 53 million yen ($484,000) with Nintendo's DS being the cheapest to develop for at only 37 million yen ($338, 286) a pop.


I Blame Wii Fit!

eugene on 27 November 2007

Im pretty sure that Microsoft and Sony can increase their production of cheap licenced shovelware also.



takeru51 on 27 November 2007

I think he's probably mostly right, but I can guarantee you that he's stretching it some when talking about PS3/360 development costs. I think he might've cherry picked some, using games that cost more than the average game to develop. Although, if you look at some of the Wii games out, I'd be surprised if they cost even $500,000 to make when all is said and done (curse you Anubis!!!!!!!!!).

I think that Reggie is talking about big titles, ones that there are some expectations for. If that's the case, I don't see anything wrong with what he said.