The math in the OP is flawed. But the premise is correct.

0.25*Development Cost(PS3/Xbox 360)

What is all this "For an install base of _____ the game is not doing well" Then what God of War sold like crap since it only sold about 2 million to a base of 120 million? That's illogical thinking.

Distribution costs are another significant expense. It costs more per game to ship fewer titles more often than it costs to ship 40-60 titles at once to a store. When the game gets there it has to compete for shelf space with "market development funds" or it has to justify a good position with continued sales and with low development there are a tonne of games pouring in gunning for that shelf space.

I'll put it in bullet points to make it easier:

• Costs more per title to ship with smaller shipments.
• Greater competition for shelf space from other titles.
• Retailers are hesitant to re-order games that are selling slowly

Thats compared to HD console titles which tend to sell quickly and justify their shelf positioning. Which is why they get prime billing in the stores.

World at War has not been a huge success on Wii. The game was pretty heavily advertised with a Wii-specific TV commercial. TV ain't cheap.

If it creeps to 1m sales, that's great, but all this sketchy math doesn't make it a huge success even then.

I'd wager in the case of a down-port with missing features like WaW, the dev costs could even be less than 1/4th of the 360 + PS3 costs, but the advertising costs for the Wii version were probably higher than the dev costs, and possibly more than 1/3rd of the 360 + PS3 ads.

But Ricciwhatever is just throwing out a ballpark figure anyways. I wouldn't trust any "math" done with a ballpark figure thrown out to explain to investors why increased Wii development will help EA reduce costs. And that's the only point of this number.

The exclusive TV ads were very limited. They had a far larger advertising campaign for the HD consoles.

Wait, did you just suggest that if (not if, when) WaW hits 1 million, it won't be a huge success for Activision?

Activision gets ~$20 per unit sold. At 1 million units, that's $20 million. Are you about to tell me that Activision spent $20 million in development and advertising costs on Wii?

I was about to write something similar to what Viper pointed out. Also ads for the Wii versus the HD versions were heavily titled towards the HD versions. Even shelf space and in game advertising, its not even close.

I'm curious who everyone is talking about when they speak of the unnamed "developer" on this site. There re a couple of them, from what I noticed, and all of them seem to be full of it.

To the best of my gathering they're talking about Groucho. They're just beating around the bush for some reason.

OOoooh Khuutra threw down the gauntlets! lol.

Well I'm not saying that I agree with them, just that Groucho is the one who puts forth that things aren't that simple and that developing Wii games isn't necessarily cheaper or more profitable than HD games.