| mrstickball said: ....But for a million selling software title, that's millions of dollars. I know Nintendo has always had better documentation software, but when your talking 500,000+ units of sales, $10 or more is very inhibitive. |
Well, there are several things to consider ...
Many (if not most) games produced for a platform from large publishers do not pay the full licencing costs; I don't know the exact details but it was rumored that Resident Evil 0, 1 and 4 were made for the Gamecube because Nintendo and Capcom traded IPs (Capcom made GBA Zeldas), did joint marketing on the titles, and Nintendo reduced their licencing fees for all Capcom games.
You also have to consider that some companies will consider "free middleware" as a form of hedging. Modern development teams can spend $1 Million (or more) on licencing of middleware to "create their engine" or hook into an engine they already licenced (The reason "create their engine" is that most modern custom engines are still based on a collection of libraries and other middleware and are rarely built from the ground up). In the case of a game which sold 250,000 copies or less you're better off paying $4 per title rather than spending $1 Million on middleware; you have effectively hedged your risks which is important.
