Why would I debate that doing a quality HD crossplat title (that's PS3 + 360) costs 3x as much as doing Wii shovelware?

I'm pretty sure I've stated that this is the case, over and over.  Its not "art" that raises costs, its ambition.  Doing more art for an ambitious HD project is what costs more -- it has very little to do with art quality (except in the case of motion capture, which costs a truckload, if you want lots of it).  An ambitious Wii project would also cost a lot more than shovelware does, even if it were shovelware on a HD platform.  The trouble is, there are no ambitious Wii projects, other than those made by Nintendo 1st party studios, really.

EA hasn't done quality for the Wii in the past -- just shovelware.  I'm sure EA, and the other companies, are telling how it is, from this perspetive.  You guys always seem to be trying to suggest that doing a high-quality Wii title costs 1/4th as much as well.  They aren't saying that at all.  They're saying that, on average (read: shovelware), Wii games are cheap to make (read: because they are shovelware).

I'm not at odds with these statements at all.  Crappy software is cheap.  I totally agree.  It makes no difference what the platform is, either.

As a side note, marketing/advertizing budgets are, of course, the same, no matter what the development platform was.

For the most part it is just for the added artwork ...

One part of it is that graphical assets require more work to produce the added detail and to produce the data necessary for the texture effects, another part of it is that the same environments require more assets to be produced so they don't look as barren, and you also need to produce even more artistic assets because people are more likely to notice repetition.

Basically, the closer you get to having individual items match reality the more you need your environments to match reality to preserve immersion in the game. While walking into an office with a desk, chair, computer and trash can worked really well on the Playstation it would seem amazingly barren if it was the environment in a PS3 game ... At the same time, if the desk used at a loading dock was the same as the desk used for the CEO few people would notice on the N64, and it would stick out like a sore thumb on an XBox 360 game.

 I don't see how people can think it's just added art, and if it is, the type of game still governs the amount of art work you're going to spend on. Something like Burnout or Dead Space are in these vast open environments, they're huge epic games with a large scope, of course art costs more, partly cause it's HD, partly due to the nature of the game.

 Making something like Boom Blox on PS360 wouldn't cost anywhere near as much as a Dead Space or Mass Effect, and equally making a game with the scope of Dead Space on the Wii would cost alot more then most of EA's 'lesser title' range. Wii is cheaper due to art assets, anyone who denies that is an idiot, however whether it's the governing factor or because the very nature of most Wii games is that they'll be cheaper, I'm not so sure.

 EA need to make more Wii games, everyone does, i'm just not sure what sort of games these are really going to be, albeit I'm sure most of them won't appeal to me.

You're right, Making Boom Blox or MySims for the HD consoles probably wouldn't cost nearly as much as a game like Dead Space but (at the same time) these games also don't cost nearly as much to develop as games that are similar to Dead Space or Burnout cost to develop for the Wii ... and they would cost several times as much to develop for HD consoles if they decided to make the artistic assets take advantage of the hardware available.

Now, there has always been the option to not take advantage of the hardware available (after all, there were several low budget 2D games on the PS2 which were similar to NeoGeo games) but this is not a very viable strategy on the HD consoles because people bought those systems primarily because of their graphical capabilities.

Why would I debate that doing a quality HD crossplat title (that's PS3 + 360) costs 3x as much as doing Wii shovelware?

I'm pretty sure I've stated that this is the case, over and over.  Its not "art" that raises costs, its ambition.  Doing more art for an ambitious HD project is what costs more -- it has very little to do with art quality (except in the case of motion capture, which costs a truckload, if you want lots of it).  An ambitious Wii project would also cost a lot more than shovelware does, even if it were shovelware on a HD platform.  The trouble is, there are no ambitious Wii projects, other than those made by Nintendo 1st party studios, really.

EA hasn't done quality for the Wii in the past -- just shovelware.  I'm sure EA, and the other companies, are telling how it is, from this perspetive.  You guys always seem to be trying to suggest that doing a high-quality Wii title costs 1/4th as much as well.  They aren't saying that at all.  They're saying that, on average (read: shovelware), Wii games are cheap to make (read: because they are shovelware).

I'm not at odds with these statements at all.  Crappy software is cheap.  I totally agree.  It makes no difference what the platform is, either.

--EDIT:

Here, let me adjust John's statements to their likely original state, before he went over it and made it "Wii fanboy PC"

" Secondly, development is typically a third to a fourth as much for a shovelware game then it is for a quality game"

 "and that is really a function of the capacity of the hardware and the fact that it is not a high-quality gaming box. So we are not producing, you know, the number of – the amount of art for high-quality games."

...btw, notice how he said "amount of art" and not "quality of art".

--

As a side note, marketing/advertizing budgets are, of course, the same, no matter what the development platform was.