How much did games on GC and the Wii cost to make?

Would imagine that average games for Playstation 2 =1.3 million Nintendo 64= 520,000 Dreamcast= 410,000 Game Boy Advance =360,000 PSone = 180'000 Game Boy = 40,000 FFVII =26 million FFVIII = 30 million FFIX = 38 million FFX = 40 million FFXI = 12 million Mario 64 = 25 million shenmue 42-45 million "Microsoft's Xbox is the most costly platform for game development, followed by Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube, says the latest report by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) in Japan. This week's issue of Famitsu covers figures from 2004 given by CESA, which calculated the average development costs for games on current-gen platforms. The reported figures are based on development fees that were voluntarily disclosed by 28 companies. According to CESA, the Xbox is the most expensive due to the platform's high-end hardware specs. Development figures taken from 13 Xbox games came to an average of 202 million yen ($1.85 million), more than double the cost of other platforms. Mbr> The PlayStation 2 ranked as the second-most-costly platform to make games for, with development figures for 194 games averaging 96 million yen ($877,000). The GameCube came in third, with figures taken from 11 games averaging 90 million yen ($822,000). Surprisingly, games for the handheld PlayStation Portable reportedly cost the same to make as GameCube ones." The average game last gen probably 7 to 8 mill (big titles) and probably rose 1 to 2 mill. So called triple A are astronmical. Probably cost ro make engines and less reliance on middleware and so forth may make for some of the high costs.

What makes you think it will take 20 mill to make a PS3 or 360 game? I just named "THE" best selling and one of the best looking games on the 360 to cost 10 million. This is a view that has no merit. It is hyped up by companies like this http://www.dfcint.com/game_article/july06article.html If I am not mistaken DFC said that the dolphin (gamecube) would completely outsell the competition last generation. Games like Galaxy, MGS4 and Halo 3 will not be a good gauge of the average cost of games. Do people take into account games like geometry wars or flow? Little big planet, Wik and wario smooth moves, really do not look like games that had to push a 10+ million budget to make a game. The argument being used is that it takes this much money to compete but in actuality which games need to compete? Visuals need to compete? I dislike Icon because of its sluggish gameplay and even worse the sheer fact that the new team decided to make the characters look as realistic as possible. Granted it's their style (they made the fight nights) but it is an unwelcome departure from what the series started at. The cost is about developers choice. What throws off these averages is that there are companies that can only afford to make a 1 mill game or a 5 mil game. Then there are companies that can afford 8 to 20 mill and a few that can go even higher than that. When people are talking about competing, the only thing that comes to mind is unit sales. That argument goes out the door because success is relative. If Final Fantasy XII sells 3 million units and small quirky rpg number 12 sells only 350,000, you may not be able to gauge success because FFXII cost 35 mill and small quirky rpg cost 5 mill to make. Granted FFXI gained a greater amount of money but that does not mean that the smaller rpg was not a success. EDIT: "Development of Final Fantasy VII began late in 1995, and required the efforts of more than one hundred artists and programmers using such software as PowerAnimator and Softimage XSI, and a budget of approximately US$45 million" "The game's release in North America was preceded by a massive three month marketing campaign for which Sony allocated a US$100 million budget." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_fantasy_vii "Work on Final Fantasy VII began in early 1996. The development budget for Final Fantasy VII was reported to be a whopping US$45 million. Never before had so much money gone into the making of an RPG. Over a hundred artists worked on producing the most amazing computer graphics ever seen in a video game. Beautifully rendered full-motion video (FMV) sequences were woven directly into the gameplay, and the game played out pretty much like a movie. Pre-rendered backdrops graced the screen throughout the entire game world." http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~geksiong/papers/sts145/Squaresoft%20and%20FF7.htm mistprinted some in second post. I had correct ones in the top post.

Did you work with middleware? Build your own engines? How do you explain GoW costing 10 mill to make? And considering you talk about assets I will ask you for what type of games. What were your ambitions? I am going to stick by my point. Saying how much a "game" will cost to make means nothing. You could name the biggest and baddest games and I will ask you how much did you think parappa, gitaroo man, disgaea, indigo prophecy, Capcom vs Snk 2 and many other successful games cost? The design of a game should be based of off several things. But going to school and working with artist and game devs that are now employed at companies like EA, N-Space, midway, Volition, Inc. and a few others, I have seen that game design is all relative. When a project is started how much of the game is already finished? (pet project) How many people working on the game content and assets? What type of game is it, action, FPS, Top down? (affects cost and time of dev alot.) What type of style is trying to be attained?(surreal, stylized, realistic) Procedural generation or all handmade textures? What is the size of the game? What is the focus? Single player or multiplayer? It could go on for days. The bottom line is to say that games have risen in cost this generation only applies to what is trying to be achieved. With the PS3 accepting numerous middleware and Sony giving out EDGE and ICE, and with MS's XNA, there should not be any blanket or generalized statements being made about game dev this time around.