We've known this was coming for years now. Apparently, third-parties largely don't care. So why should we?

Diminishing returns... it's getting to be a serious problem. The bright side is that small companies that make indie games like Torchlight keep making bigger and bigger games as they make more money, so they themselves turn into larger studios capable of making AAA console games, and many of them eventually join the leagues of the big players. It's not as if the major publishers like Ubi, EA, Activision, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are the only companies able to afford the cost of next-gen development.

The key is to choose your investments carefully, make sure you launch high-quality new IP at the start of a new cycle, and don't throw money at a sequel like Epic Mickey 2 where the vast majority of gamers could care less and therefore will not buy it.  Failure is not an option.

270 voice actors for Skyrim??? But I keep hearing the same people!!!

tagged for later reading. seems really interesting!

I really want to see the Halo 4 budget and stuff.

The Witcher 2 cost CD Project about 12 million dollars and is still probably the best looking game. Great story and gameplay too.

Yeah me too. I guess all the npc's you only hear once have different people voicing them, while the standard guards in every town are voiced by the same people. They say the same lines too after all.
Good example of the need to work smarter instead of throw more people at it. I don't care if the chief for one quest on one side of the map sounds the same as a shop keeper on the other side. However getting greeted by the same lines by the same actor in every town...

Bring on the PS4/x720 with its ULTRA HIGH Specs! its going to be great for third parties development budget cost! ..

Surely developers be flocking to develop for these and not for the current gen install base right PS360 fans?

Sure, that would teorically make sense, still I don't think it's going to happen.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/378474/epic-games-next-gen-games-will-cost-double-to-develop/

Tim Sweeney should be the first in line to tell how convenient next-gen development will be, since he has to promote Unreal Engine 4. Still in his best hopes, game development cost will "only" double by the start of next-generation.

As for the OT, rising costs will effect gaming the same way it is affecting gaming now, killing diversity. Every game will need to move an huge amount of copies in order to justify production costs, so the more we go on the more we will only see FPS clones and action story-driven clones, at best we can hope for some FPS with some fake RPG element in it.

That is explainable as a part of the business startegy of some major publisher, like EA. If you keep spending more and more on games, on one hand you may have lower margins, on the other hand you will cut out competition, you will cut out those who aren't just big enough to risk so much on a single game, and those who haven't got a cash-cow to milk (like FIFA or Madden) while investing in the lastest tecnologies.