True but VGChartz has 206 games over a million on PS2. There is definatly a possability that there are many more since it is harder to find out imformation about older games. It says that the PS1 sold 131 million sellers, but the numers drop like a rock right after the last million. lol

After a billion software units sold and counting the PS2 is immune to sarcasm.

Development teams for the Wii will always be smaller than a big budget game and will often be working on a shorter time table as well.

In short, it simply takes fewer man hours to produce the game resources, of which programming code is now a much smaller portion of a game's overall effort.

Art resources (textures, models, etc.), sound resources (everything from soundtrack to SFX to voice acting) eat more budget funds in terms of man hours. More artists, not more programmers is the norm for high budget games.

It goes without saying that story and writing are typically the most neglected aspects of game development which is reflected accordingly in the budgets of most high profile games. It has been changing, but in most cases, still holds true.

Someone's going to have to dig up some developer quotes, but generally, it's been said that the budgets for Wii games are typically as low as a fourth of the budget of a PS3/360 game. Naturally there will be quite a discrepancy depending on the games being compared.

Actually Lair was not a commercial fail as everyone seems. It's budget was only 10 million and actually broke even. Also haze surely wasn't a flop, selling 0.75 million, more then most games make, and I don't know why people flip out over review scores. Haze received a 5.5, horrible right? Since when? It's average, since 5/10 would be absolute average, anything below that would be below average then horrible. However it seems we got lost on the way, movie reviews still got it right though. If a game gets anywhere 40 and over it's watchable and good to the majority. Haze was playable, not the best game of course and had bugs, but it was not a failure. Lair is a good game, after the analog patch. That was the ONLY thing that kept it back. Think about it. It had a good story, gorgeous graphics for the time, with hundreds being animated, though the controls held it down. Analog patch made controls good, not great, but with them it deserves between a 7.5 and 8.5, anyone would agree with that.

You seem to be forgetting that gaming scores essentially range from 60-100, not 0-100.

Any game that scores in the 50s (or less) was panned, no amount of spin lessens that.

End results, scores aside for Free Radical, Haze being their last big project:

"On December 18, 2008, it was reported that the studio had shut down,[5] though it was later confirmed that the company had gone into administration,[6] leaving 40 of the original 185 staff still employed.[7]
On February 3, 2009, Haze scriptwriter Rob Yescombe confirmed that Free Radical Design had been purchased by German games developer Crytek.[8], which was then confirmed by Crytek themselves the following day.[9]"

End results for Factor 5, Lair being their last big project:

"In late December 2008, several online media outlets reported that Brash Entertainment (Factor 5's publisher of their current project) would close at the end of the month after encountering financial problems. This sudden interruption in funding left Factor 5 with their own funding difficulties. The company's current state has not been officially announced but unconfirmed "insider" reports claim that they have ceased operations.[1]"

You can claim coincidence for either or even both, but it's fairly safe to say that if either Haze or Lair had met or exceeded expectations, Factor 5 and Free Radical would be working on sequels or some other big budget projects.

We are in a recession. It was not due to those games. Critically aclaimed games like valkyria chronicles sold the same as Lair, and Saga is thinking of making a second one. Did it make profit? No. It was a much bigger and longer game then lair, and required much more detail. Is this a flop? Games this generation need "at least" 500k sales is wrong, it needs "x" sales for "y budget" would be more acceptable. These types of games never really sell well. You can tell, no matter the reviews, if it's hyped it'll sell. Haze as an example, though that example is flawed because it comes to a few factors. From genre to style, to setting, to audience. You could have one of the most hyped games ever, it could get 100 by everyone, it's still only going to sell per genre and audience, with a little more people jumping due to review scores. In fact they say each point on metacritic after 80 only makes 5 more people a day pick it up.

Also this "60-100" thing is dead for along time. It was invented to put games down, because a lot of reviewers are afraid of giving anything less then a 60. For in dividual reviewers that is fine, but for a meta review you have to through that out. If it was right, we would only see a few games below 60, and never any farthur then 50. There is around 20 games sitting at the 30 point, and these games are still playable! What games are absolutely impossible to play? Little Britain: The Video Game. Even that got a 19. I can't remember but lowest rated game got a 6 meta review was about trucking, problem was buttons wouldn't register, roads poped and disappeared, game would crash every litterally 5 seconds then start again 5 minutes later again. Impossible to play.

Not really TOO much of a surprise to me. Also not all games HAVE to sell 1 million to not be a flop... but we all know that

ROFL!

OT: I don't know about Lair, never looked at it's sales. HAZE had around 600K sales... I really find it hard to believe....

The original was able to sell 700k just in Japan on GC/PS2 without Nintendo's help.