I'm sure KZ2 was expensive, but I doubt they've paid 100 people full time for 4 years.  It would be more normal to have an flexible team that ramped up/down over time hitting a peak when full production was in place.

However as ever its too simple to look at things in isolation.  If you have an engine in place to use/adapt, as Epic did with Gears, your costs will be less, if you build an engine from scratch (as Epic had to years back with the original Unreal, which was 5 years in development if I remember correctly) then it's going to cost you more.

But of course once you have the engine, subsequent games become cheaper to produce and over time you make more money.  KZ2 looks like it will be a hit, and with the engine now in place KZ3 should be a less expensive affair to get out the door.

This is why so many devs are attracted to sourcing engines in the first place, to avoid that initial expense - the down side is that unless the developer is good/has an original concept you get many 'meh' games on the same engine.  Personally I find more than half U3 based games 'meh' which is not a knock on the engine, but that its rarely properly exploited and serves as a low cost way to bash a game out.

I'm pretty sure Uncharted cost around $30 Million to develop, with ND stating a lot of that was due to having to build everything from scratch essentially (although actors and mocap CGI scenes probably didn't cut costs either!).  I would guess KZ2 cost around that or more to develop - however as with Gears its not all about one throw of the dice, but making some money on the initial investment and getting a franchise in place where each release should be more profitable than the last.

The advertising amount you have seems very high though - I know the game has been hyped on the internet, etc. but I've seen nothing for the game remotely like Halo 3 advertising or big budget movie advertising so tens of millions in advertising seems unlikely I would think.

It looks like this thread is one of several evidence of anti-SONY fanboys who cannot give credit where it's due because they are not gamers. Killzone 2 sold well for its start and it did help boost PS3 units. And I'm not afraid to call out names such as kirby007 and Starcraft because as long as SONY continues to push the PS3, it will always be a quality viable option. As I gamer, the successes of all console maker are great, and I do not make excuses to downplay those successes. As soon as you guys and other like you become gamers, SONY's successes will stop being a thorn in your sides. But keep hurting. I'm not because I'm a gamer, first.

:)

 I completely agree!

It's important to emphasize that it's actually okay for first party games to sometimes even lose money because of the indirect advantages you listed.

But in the case of KZ2 I believe it will generate a nice profit by itself.

It's because non-gamers have to make excuses to ingore the successes of a console they do not favor.

Back OT:  I agree.

Nice sales, and it looks like Killzone 2 was a console mover, despite so many of you bashing Sony for predicting this...

There's one thing I don't understand : there has been 1.2 million pre-orders in Europe and it sold only 372k first week ? WTF ?

Lol at haters.

On-topic. Great sales for ps3 and Killzone 2.

Because up until the release of KZ2 the PS3 was DOWN coming into this year. If anything it suggest a WEAKNESS in the PS3 library, because a very good game like KZ2 was able to bring it back to "regular" numbers for that week. And also, it can't be said price is the ONLY problem PS3 has/had.

except that Sony predicted that Killzone 2 would move as many units as MGS4.

 That number was BS or actually copies ordered by retailers as some suggested.