http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3180042

Recently, Junction Point studio head Warren Spector revealed that not only is the approximately-115 person team at Junction Point developing Epic Mickey, but that after factoring in outsourcing, the total number of people working on the game is closer to 275. Spector joked, "When you have a project this ambitious, you have to go big!"

When asked to elaborate, he provided this basic breakdown: actual design/gameplay and initial art concepting and passes are still Junction Point's domain, while active production of art assets and other visual elements get outsourced to various studios around the world. As an example, concept art (which in itself is shared between Junction Point and an internal Disney division; Spector quipped, "Disney has some of the best concept artists in the world, of course we'd use that resource!") and initial geometry of a level would be created internally. Then the level is sent off to an external firm for texture passes, and lighting before being integrated into the game. The 2D levels inspired by cartoons such as Steamboat Willie and Clock Cleaners? Junction Point literally designed those levels on paper, sent those sketches to a firm in Bulgaria, said firm built the actual level, and then sent it back to Junction Point for critique and follow-up revisions. And again, the storyboard-style cutscenes were conceptualized internally, and then actually created/animated by an external firm.

Spector followed up on his earlier remark by pointing out that large team sizes are a necessity nowadays -- specifically citing Call of Duty: Black Ops' near-300-personnel development team and how Assassin's Creed had 450 individuals working on it at its peak. What's interesting to us is that this is the first we've heard of a third-party Wii title having manpower that rivals a Call of Duty title, and it confirms that Disney Interactive Studios is taking Epic Mickey, and its development, very seriously.

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Red Steel is finally surpassed as the most expensive third-party Wii game?  It only took four years for that to happen!

Possible $30M game on the Wii? O_o

That's if they make $80k/year.

That's alot of people so I"m guessing this is the wii's 2nd big budget 3rd party title. And in one year yay!

I'm soo waitng for the reactions for the game

"When you have a project this ambitious, you have to go big!"

I wouldn't have guessed it was ambitious. You'd think there would be something in the name that implies this was an ambitious project.

I think this game will be huge, critics seem to love it, it looks really polished

Gamers loving the concept matters more than that.

Okay, that's nuts.

Without the luxury of a $60 MSRP, this game is going to have to sell well over a million to really pay off.

On the other hand, it's novel to get a Wii game that they didn't cheap out on.

I dont see this ending well.

I would say there is a pretty clear distinction between Epic Mickey and a game like Call of Duty; and that is that the core team working on Epic Mickey is (potentially) far smaller, and the teams portions are outsourced to are (probably) only working part time. Basically, they might have a team working on 2D levels but this whole team is probably not working on these levels for the entire length of the project.

I assumed MH3 was a large project too.

None the less, EM has a really good shot at being a success, especially on the Wii.