A question, is "hus" some sort of derogatory term Ps3 owners are called on here.

HappySquirrel's numbers are nothing but pure speculations. Lets see him post the yearly salary for programmers, testers, artists stuff like that ?

50 of those 200 might be testers that get payed next to nothing, lets see HappySquirrel break down what those 200 people do.

Did Mars just suggest that MGS developers get paid minimum wage? $840 a month? That would essentially imply that only devs with no prior experience or training would be working on it since they'd be paid a lot better elsewhere.

Ummmm didnt Stranglehold cost like $25 million. That games was pretty short and linear. I think MGS will have better EVERYTHING (graphics, AI, online, advertisement) as well as more people working on it. I would not be surprised that it costs less than $40 mil. It will sell very well though so who knows what type of profit they will turn.

Developers are not paid minimum wage. Ever. 

In Japan healthcare services are provided by the government, but they come out of payroll taxes, just like in any other country with socialized medicine. Those taxes don't pay themselves: A good chunk is paid by the employer. It's hard to give you hard figures for Japan with my limited japanese though. In Spain, to give you an xample of a place with socialized medicine, the employer pays 23.6% of the employee's salary, and the employee pays 4.7% (http://www.seg-social.es/inicio/?MIval=cw_usr_view_Folder&LANG=1&ID=36537) A place with crummy social security like the US takes 6.2% divided evenly between employee and employer. But then, in the US there's the ugly insurance and 401K matching costs, that can be 20% of the employee salary together. 15K is a very low estimate.

Kid, we are adults talking real numbers here. Please try to argue a little better.

"2006 Game Industry Salary Survey

"The average game developer salary isn’t astronomical—it’s comfortable, but not astronomical. It’s about $70,000 per year."

"Average salary for programmers/engineers with 3 or fewer years’ experience: $52,989."

"Average salary for artists and animators with 3 or fewer years’ experience: $45,675."

"Average salary for designers with 3 or fewer years’ experience: $43,486."

"Average salary for testers with 3 or fewer years’ experience: $24,797."

http://gamecareerguide.com/features/266/index.php?page=1

Edit: I wonder if there is a Pwnd cat photo

why the hell are people including taxes in the MGS4 budget?

There is no way this game cost $40-80M, more likely $20-30M. so if konami take $25 from each game thats... 1.2M copies sold to break even. That is pretty much garenteed, the user base will be about 10M, and to pay that much for a PS3 they will be hardcore playstation fans (mostly). This game will probably sell between 3M-4M giving konami a nice profit of... $45M. 

Hey 50 of those developers are working on the 360 version (its easier to program for so they dont need as many).
LOL.
(Flame suit ON!)

I would bet that MGS4 will cost Konami around 30m to produce and another million to advertise and distribute.

If they make about $20 per sale, then they would only need to sell about 1.55m units to break even. I bet they are aiming for a 4-5m sell through. So even if they spend 40m at a max, they should still be really profitable here. Based on the numbers below, this is a huge game for them, it is their biggest franchise.

Let's see, MGS games sold historically,

1 = 5.59m
2 = 5.56m
3 = 3.96m

@http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php?name=metal+gear&console=&publisher=&sort=Total

@happy squrriel

well you havent Pwnd anyone yet because the game is developed in Japan not the USA. PWND :)

Adv budget for Lost Planet was $20M so I think it is safe to say that for MGS4 it will be a lot more than $1M.