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Forums - Gaming - How much do handheld games cost to develop?

S.T.A.G.E. on 26 July 2014

Dramatically cheaper. On level with indie prices.



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DietSoap on 27 July 2014

I remember an Iwata quote from around 2011 where he told investors their games generally need to hit a million copies sold to be profitable.

If that's true for their handheld games as well (and I don't see why it wouldn't considering that's their main business). then that would make their average 3DS game around $15 - $20 million since they obviously don't pay any 3rd party fees on their own platform.

There's also digital to account for, but Nintendo wasn't as big into digital back in 2011.



Mystro-Sama on 27 July 2014
RolStoppable said:
Between $1-3m for mid to high production values. Of course it's possible to go higher, but that range is commonly used to (slightly) profit from unit sales of 100-300k after a marketing budget is added.


I always wondered that myself and knew it would be near that mark.



generic-user-1 on 27 July 2014

i wonder how much a level 5 game costs. i think they are printing money atm...



PlayMatt on 27 July 2014
drdante said:
Mystro-Sama said:
drdante said:
Mystro-Sama said:

I wonder how much Freedom Wars cost... :/

 

4m?


probably around 15-20 million i think

FW involved 2 studios with numerous staffs to make this game so the budget could be higher

and since EU demands physical copy its also increase cost.

EDIT: adjusting number :P


Whhhhhhy? 0.0

Why are 2 studios necessary?


i've read the interview with the director somewhere on gaming site

1 studio were making character design, storyline, etc while the other studio were making animation and gameplay design like combat style, level, etc

and all of those development is lead by Japan Studio so count them as 3

I doubt it was more then 10million... LOL



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drdante on 27 July 2014

u know what? screw it... i was wrong
Freedom Wars maybe range within 5 million or less
if the average PS3-X360 was over 20 million, then handheld titles are way less than that
thus i retract my earlier post, sorry

further reading: http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649

PS: wow at Destiny, over 140 million cost to make



         

NiKKoM on 27 July 2014

Kim kardashian hollywood costed around 3 million.. For a phone game.. I think a lot of people are underestimating the budget hench the reason why there around a lot of studios making them anymore.. Relativly high cost with low return on investment..



 

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Mystro-Sama on 27 July 2014
drdante said:
u know what? screw it... i was wrong
Freedom Wars maybe range within 5 million or less
if the average PS3-X360 was over 20 million, then handheld titles are way less than that
thus i retract my earlier post, sorry

further reading: http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649

PS: wow at Destiny, over 140 million cost to make

Now that sounds more likely.