If you have a large game say a RPG and would take 40 hours to complete on a last gen console then you would have to note a couple of things.

1.  The story line is normally quite large.

2.  The enviroment is vast.

Now HD consoles generally only provide 1 thing.  Better quality graphics.  There is the power there for better AI and physics but theres not many games out for the HD consoles that are using these as their main selling point.

So the question is (the title of thread)

If you used to create big storylines and vast enviroments for the last gen consoles and now all you have to do is improve the graphics, why is it so much more expensive?  I know it would be more expensive but not to the cripperling degree, developing for HD consoles is made out to be.

Thoughts?

If you're talking about JRPGs, there's honesty not a lot of extra engineering work to be done for a HD console, as opposed to the Wii or PS2. If you're talking WRPGs, where you can fiddle with the environment, and the world is open, there's a LOT of extra engineering work to be done on the HDs, merely because HD WRPGs (e.g.: Oblivion, Fallout 3) are really ambitious.

If Wii RPGs were that ambitious, they would require just as much work... maybe more, since meeting that kind of ambition with lesser hardware would entail a lot of low level engineering work.

It's more because more is expected. Five years ago people could get away with lower res textures, lower poly objects, and things like actors clipping into other actors.

Nowadays, things have to be much higher res, things are expected to be bigger and more grand, and the quality bar has been raised super high.

It's a shame really because people see games like Killzone 2 that have been in development for half a decade with an unlimited budget and people expect every game to be on par with that when that just can't happen. Still though, people expect it, so development times have to become longer and more people have to get put on the already expensive project so the cost goes up even more.

You can have a really good game come along that looks good and plays well but if it doesn't look like whatever the big game is, it's crap.

No im not talking about JRPGs, I used RPGs in general as an example. 

If WRPGs where made on the last gen consoles then the same engineering requirements would applying to the current consoles.

And the Wii is not a calculator.  It has alot more memory and processing power than any of the last gen consoles and therefore would be easier to program WRPGs on, compared to last gen consoles that is.

The main point is generally HD consoles offer in most games, better graphics so where is the expense coming from?

I think you missed twesterm's point.

Expectations are higher.  It has nothing to do with difficulty of engineering on the HD consoles.  They are both pretty easy to develop for, as is the Wii.  Engineering toward more ambitious goals requires more time, and that's true across the board, no matter what console you're talking about.  

As a general rule, game designers shoot for a higher bar on the HDs than the Wii, and so the engineering costs go up.  It has nothing to do with the console, directly.  Any Wii game could be ported to either of the HD consoles very easily.  Hitting a high bar with the Wii, as opposed to the HD consoles, is *much* harder, because consumer expectations have been elevated by previous efforts on more advanced hardware (the HD consoles), and squeezing every ounce of performance out of a machine is never easy.

HD games cost a lot because they are ambitious.  There's no other reason.  Ambitious games on the Wii would also cost a bunch, for the same reasons.  Its just that, at this time, there are very few ambitious Wii projects which have been completed and released, so people like to pretend that "Wii games cost less", and "HD games cost more".

The fact of the matter is that ambitious games cost more, and devs/publishers don't get ambitious with the Wii for technical reasons, although I'm sure they will try to go there at some point.

I see what your saying about Killzone 2, however I think the problem is planning.

If you look at the development pictures of Killzone of the years you notice that characters change backgrounds change things are improved left, right and centre.  The game ends up looking nothing like it did when it first started.

Now thats to be expected to a certain degree.  But the changes in Killzone 2 are vast.  I wonder how many times the developers have changed whole sections of code that if it were thought out properly in the first place wouldnt have had to be changed at all.

I dont know why developers dont work on their engine first.  get it as good as it can be and then develop games in it

The same reason it's cheaper to draw a stick figure than a photorealistic painting.

Higher definition images are harder to texture. Six times as much detail means every texture on every rock, every gun, every torso has to take six times as long to make.

When compared to the PS2 era factoring inflation and so on I don't think Game's development has become that much more expensive , cost's of development will soon go down as a number of factors change ( improved development techniques , cheaper development tools etc ).

I agree somewhat with what Twestern said I think technological cost's are an issue but not the main one , developers are pressured to increase the quality of animation , detail , story line , voice acting , presentation etc ; this takes time and resources the market doesn't want Grand Theft Auto HD it wants MORE MORE MORE and that's what the developers are forced to give if they want to survive ( Which ironicaly makes profitability more difficult).

We have quite a few profitable HD games but there is an issue with overall consistency , the market doesn't seem to be able to support a diversified range of HD games so we get the occasional Mirrors edge with Battlefront , Haze , Dead Space and Far Cry in between..

only better graphics...?

what about the online capabilities?

or you are the ones that believe motion control can't be done on HD machines?

its not programming that is really different, yeah there is more, and you have a ton of pixel shaders to write (so your programming team will be a little large then a Wii production team because of that) but it doesn't equate to a massive difference in time... however..

...its the art work...

he amount of artwork required to produce art for the HD consoles is pretty insane. Building high detail models to build the base normal map off for skins and wall textures. build low detail models, build up a good specular map, diffuse map (base colors). all of that takes a-lot of time, in fact it takes over 3 times longer to build skins for a model today then say back in 2002, simply because of the extra steps one must take (esp in building a good normal map). Same largely applys with textures for map walls and terrain as well.