I'd spend about 100 million on development and 400 million on advertising.

I say "thank you very much for funding our next 10 games" and continue working on the game our dev team is working on, then go to our 2nd game project, which will be mentioned before long

1. Fund a trip to Japan, hire a translator, to speak with Nintendo about my budget and how I'm interested in working on a game in partnership with them.

2. Hire thesource to do some projections for both hardware and software trends. Including which games have proven successful with a detailed analysis on why they have been successful including, time of launch, competition, budget and advertising, pricing at retail, etc..

3. Take this analysis to Nintendo's HQ to discuss the findings and also what direction they will be taking in the next few years with Wii and their next console.

4. Create a mission statement. A game that is as accessable, versitile and addictive as pokemon.

5. Begin working with every team director and producer at Nintendo on brainstorming and prototyping for the title to perhaps go to DS2 or Wii.

6. However I'm not happy with the budget being spent on the Wii as the title is projected to be finished in 2012/2013

7. More meetings and focus groups and I decide that after having already spent $10 million that I want this game as a first year game for the Wii2

8. I decide to add to my mission statement. Production on a scalable graphics engine will begin June 2009 so that it can suit to the hardware of Wii2. The game will have an easy to understand but intriguing and movie-like storyline. Gameplay comes first and the storyline will be written around the gameplay. The budget for the first game in the series will be $300 million with $150 million going to advertising and the rest will go to the second game in the series.

9. The single player mode, multiplayer mode, online multiplayer mode and party mode will all have the same budget and will all be developed in parallel to each other.

10. By 2012, the game will be built and the general specs of the Wii2 will be known to the team so that scaling and control changes can begin to take place.

11. By the beginning of 2013, the game will be pretty much complete with further testing and dialog changes, gameplay edits, storyboard rearrangements etc.

12. At the complete unveiling of Wii 2 the hype train for my game will begin with viral messages and videos on the internet. Once the Console has launched, viral TV advertisements will begin and each console will come with a small booklet showcasing the biggest and best piece of entertainment ever created.

13. The game will have an unveiling 3 months prior to launch and will be called the killer app killer.

14. Once launched, the game will continually be pushed with marketing for 2 years with profitability not a part of the plan. All revenue will go to Nintendo with the condition that I get to continue to work on the series for as long as it runs.

15. It will be the defining game of the generation and will pull in casual, core and hardcore with its wide scope and unlimited fun. It will give weight to the 'games are art' argument.

16. The next game in the series will take another 5 years to develop but will have a much more limited budget as profitability will be number one this time.

That would be my legacy to the world :)

I would take whatever I needed to set up an office, and start hunting for developers. I wouldn't put together a superteam, but hire unknown Flash designers, game design school dropouts, and any sort of creative professional in a dead-end job, and give 200 of them $25,000 and 3 months to create a playable proof of concept. Including my own expenses to get this running, I'm down $6m and have 200 concepts.

Instead of personally picking the best concepts, they would be shown in different public forums (arcade-like settings, web sites). Any game that generated buzz, that developer would then be given a $500,000 budget and 6 months to create a game. Even if all 200 concepts were awesome, this would only be a $100m expense. More realistically, if 50 concepts were worthwhile, even with the expenses to rent public spaces, advertise, build and operate the web site, I'm down maybe $30m.

Obviously, a $500K budget would not hire more than a small team for 6 months, but then again the idea is not to just hand out money and expect great results. $500K and 6 months is enough to create a classic web-based or arcade-type game. Again, these games would be shown in public forums, and this time maybe 10 would come through. Those 10 would now have $3m and a year to develop games; enough to develop for Wii, DS, Steam, etc. They would not be limited to their initial concept at this point.

I would be able to repeat this experiment at least 5 times, probably at 5-6 year intervals.

I'd like to think that $500m could make more than another forgettable "HD epic." That's enough to live your entire life comfortably, and just maybe, if you can figure out how to be profitable along the way, walk away as the owner of a major game publisher, with a sizable group of studios, each with a visionary leader.

screw the game, i'd make my own console with that cash lol.

I'd make my own console, with blackjack and hookers, know what forget the blackjack.

...and never sees me again.

I hear Rio is nice and Brazil reluctant to extradite.

Or maybe I use $20 Million to produce a decent FPS for him and then scram.

i would make a console with very cheap gc/ps2 graphical capabilities, and sell it for $99 each. it will include a medium sized hardrive, and no disc drive. it would be driven solely by downloadable games. the most expensive games (the ones with the best graphics and also the largest filesizes) would go for 20 bucks. everything else will be cheaper.