Ail - But thats not included in development costs. Thats the cost of running a business and they will have those cost before during and after GT5 and any period that they arent working on a game. Trust me they arent included.

What do u mean? According to Squilliam and others it's industry practice to account each team member with a cost of $100,000 per year.

That is solid.

CGI, watch here. Because this is one reason why the numbers released to the public may differ. There's two methods to estimate development cost. One is to just include the direct costs for the game, like salaries, outsourcing and equipment. But another is to include all costs needed to produce the game - that is administrative costs, travels, office space and rent, PR, for the whole software house.

When you mention a cost per employee it is actually included, I wasn't adding stuff like salary of the HR and finance people.

Just stuff like taxes and benefits mostly....( not sure about how it is in Japan but in the US the costs of benefits is roughly 10-15k$ per employee depending what kind of coverage is provided).

In my company it is actually closer to 20k ( health coverage + life insurance costs the company about 14k/employee and the 401k match costs 3k or so per employee).

That's why most people that don't have health insurance through their work can't afford to purchase it by themselves, it costs a fortune...( I pay 85$ a month, that's 7% of the cost, the company pays the remaining 93%).

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=5838&type=wmv

This is Vision GT, the first tech demo for a next gen GT, which in turn lead to the development of GT HD, which wasn't even the GT5 engine, it was just a souped up GT4 engine, and this was released in late 2006/early 2007

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/864/864502p1.html

This is Kaz interview, which hints at the team focusing exclusively in GT5:P

http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/3437.html

Kaz hinting at a 2010 release for GT5 already

its a lil bit different in japan. as the rest of the world healthcare is done differently.

Benifits and healthcare should be considered but rent and utilities should not. Travel expenses, ect ect. These are all kept in a the book but not designated in any project. There is no reason to included them... except to inflate costs to help your arguement.

So, can we now drop the whole GT5 has been always developed exclusively since 05?, Also, for those who don't know PD's history, they also took 4/5 years to develop GT4 from GT3, using the SAME, i say again, the SAME, engine they used for GT3. Just check the evolution that GT4 had from GT3, and you'll see why.

japan has a form of universal health care I believe. So healthcare would be irrelevant it is provided by the government.

Mainly from here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17244157&postcount=1




Also this, but take it with a grain of salt (I think the numbers are too high):

2008 Game Developer Salary Survey Reveals $79,000 Average Income