I found this comment an interesting read...

"Yet many developers find that the costs of developing on Sony's platform can outweigh many of the benefits. Sony's royalty on each disc sold is twice the royalty Microsoft levies on their system. Additionally, each extra month of development that the platform requires can raise the break-even point by as many as 50,000 to 80,000 units on big titles."

I didn't know that Microsoft's royalties were half of what Sony charges...  And it is interesting that for every month a project is late, it will increase the break even point by 50 - 80 thousand copies sold...  Thus, a one year delay like Resident Evil 5 saw could require an extra million units to be sold.

Source Article:  http://emaglive.com/index.php?showtopic=1988.  The comment is in the last paragraph.  Please start another thread if you want to talk about the rumor part of the article about new titles.  This thread is about facts and development costs, not possible rumors and future games on 360.

Very interesting indeed... I guess Nintendo has even greater royalties than Sony. But the part that's really OUCH is that delay of one month " can raise the break-even point by as many as 50,000 to 80,000 units on big titles " .

In my opinion, Microsoft is the best bet for 3rd party developers; it costs less (than PS3) and offers better revenue (than both)...

the one reader comment is rather humorous. I can't believe he actually thinks this is a SONY PR stunt. lol.

anyways, i'm not supprised that sony would charge twice as much for royalties on thier disks. Either Sony things they should cost more since it uses Blu-Ray discs, or it's microsofts brilliant plan to gain developer support, since microsoft doesn't really NEED the extra income (obviously shown by thier $7B losses so far)

It is N64 days for Sony all over again; Ninty used to charge (still charges?) huge amounts of money as royalties during that era.

This just shows how evil Microsoft is, first we learn about how they bribe companies to put out games on the 360, now it turns out they're also bribing companies by charging lower royalties. Greedy bastards.

The royalties per disc aren't that much, maybe $10-15 and that might be high. It's not like Sony gets $40 and MS only takes $20.

^^ Doesn´t make a differecne, double is a lot when you talk about games selling close to, or even over a million, when a company is not that sure it will break even they see the 360 with a bigger install base and more profit per sold game vs. the PS3 with a smaller install base and  less profit per game.  If this is true (and  I don´t see why couldn´t be) then Sony has to get of their asses ASAP and start courting 3rd parties like its the end of mating season, no system can become a fantastic seller without massive 3rd party support, right now exclisive support is really what they need most.

 During the last Generation Microsoft charged $7 per disk and Sony and Nintendo charged $10. For MS's cost to be half Sony's they'd have to be charging around $5 a disk, I seriously doubt Sony would have raised their fees. Also Routsounmanman, it wasn't the licensing fees that were the problem as much as the cartridge costs during the N64 era. I mean the developer would pay Nintendo $20 to $30 for the cartridge and then still have to pay a licensing fee.

I don't have a link anymore but I believe that Licencing fees were $7/$7/$8.50 per title for the PS2/XBox/Gamecube; which was far closer than the $6/$14+ from the Playstation/N64. I could be wrong but I believe that the N64's licencing fee included the production of the Cartridge.

After Microsoft and Sony announced that game prices were going up $10 on both the XBox and PS3 there were rumors that the price increase on Microsoft's games went entirely to the developers whilst the increase was split between Sony and the developers on the PS3.

If this is true then Sony really has an uphill battle ahead of them. I thought they would've learned what not to do by now.