I doubt GTA V will sell as well as GTA IV. I mean I really like GTA but IV was a huge let down for most people, especially after the bizarre reviews it got. People don't like to be fooled twice.

Not a surprise. It's at least five games in one.

I'm trying to think of the last time we actually had the budget for a title (development only), which is actually a real figure and not just an estimate from some analyst.

The average dev cost this gen are between $20-$40 million.

$40-50 million. More than $200 million if you included marketing.

Yeah, but that's still 66-83% less :D

I wonder what development costs we'll see in this gen...

The dev cost are rising at alarming speeds. Here's a very interesting article about the matter. Pretty long though. 

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=152843&page=1

There are 2 hour movies that cost more

Sounds about right for an overdone game.

and it's not as if people who work in that industry don't want to get a loan increase of few percent every year and rising costs of other stuff as well...so, even with the same amount of people and same time to develop a game, costs increase more and more from year to year. but gamers won't accept a 10-20% higher game price since a decade or something and probably not for next gen. no clue how that shall work in the future.