See why are these garbage games selling like hotcakes, but games that are really good like Call of Duty World at War,Disaster: Day of Crisis, Medal of Honor are selling like shit. I mean come on people we all complain about the Wii not getting any hardcore games and when one does come out no one buys it. I mean sure the games were gimped and did not have all of the features the HD versions had, but still these are great game all in all. All the people who get pissed of at the Wii not getting hardcore games and then turn around and do not buy one that comes out makes me sick!!!

 I disagree on Boom Blox, EA spent big on the marketing for that and even had Speilberg's name on the cover. 700k isn't bad by any means but I think for EA that was meant to be one of the Wii huge Christmas hits alongside Mario Kart and Wii Fit, and it didn't really work out that well.

 IT's filling the Game stores in the UK shelves now with a price reduction from £39.99 to £14.99, normally a strong sign of a game not living up to it's expected sales. It maybe broke even, maybe lost money after the marketing budget or maybe made a tidy profit, but in my opinion I don't think EA got what they expected.

 Zack and Wiki did well for a game with zero marketing outside of Europe though, not sure how it did with price cuts as that effects revenue pretty quickly. No doubt a success for a game of that nature.

Vast Majority?  Big statement.  Gumdrops, in the form of links, please.  We'd all love to have these hard "2 to 4 times" numbers at our fingertips, like you seem to, and the definition of "average" in any of these links would... well it would be great.

Some nice assumptions you're making there about the source of the cost of resources in game development there as well... work in the games industry do you?  Have any backup for these claims? Or.. are you just theorizing, based on your vast personal knowledge of what game development might be all about?

You do know what site you're on right?

And yeah, Haze failed--considering its' much higher budget than those two other games.  Seen its' developer's condition lately?  They're selling off all their assets.

For starters, there's the famous Factor 5 graph:

http://i32.tinypic.com/10glffn.jpg

Then you have things like:

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/12/18/kazunori-yamauchi-dishes-more-gran-turismo-5-details

I could go on...

PS: Also, how do you explain the increase in software prices which happened for the PS3 and 360?

where on this site can i find that Zack and Wiki made 20 million dollars for its publishers.  LINK?

Why is it so hard for wii fans to admit a game failed ?

Wow.  You should go on, since a graph from a developer who flopped from bad business practices probably isn't very reliable as a source for the "typical case", and one of Sony's highest profile titles probably doesn't describe the HD "average" very well, does it?

That Factor 5 chart I find interesting, I think they were trying to make a subtle hint at Lair being AAA this gen, but for a high budget title to only come between $12 million to $15 million is alot less then some of the figures thrown around on here.

Especially as it was a launch game, costs no doubt fall after all the engines are made, middleware created and whatnot 0_o.

Still, it's hard to ever really estimate developement costs. FFXII cost $20 million and that was a last gen game. Some Wii games will no doubt have costed more then some PS360, a good rule of thumb is just that the Wii equivalent would be cheaper.

@Groucho: So I have to provide data about every single title in order to conclude what the average is?

I think that quote from Yamauchi proves that added graphical detail comes at significant cost. PS3/360 games have significantly more graphical detail than Wii games, therefore they are more expensive.

Do you see a flaw in this thinking?

PS: On another note, do explain how so many developers are seeing record revenues with the same or lower profits (not to say losses).

lol. you didnt even address anything he said.