Actually costs vary some games are relatively cheap to produce. While the high end or AAA games cost more. I actually read a article that gave a good rule of thumb for AAA development costs on the respective platforms, or how many units need to be sold to break even.

Wii 250,000
360 350,000
PS3 600,000

The Wii is markedly cheaper due to the weaker technology. Further more since it is relatively well known code the process is very simple comparatively speaking. The older technology is the easier it is to code for. You could probably make a eight bit game yourself for less then a thousand dollars with the proper development tools. Where as it cost tens of thousands of dollars at the time.

The 360 seems to be on par graphics wise with the PS3 right now. The difference is the technology is very universal its a console that thinks its a PC. The software tools have had time to develop so the costs have come down.

The PS3 is very new technologically speaking. The Cell processor is still poorly understood. The large game size, and the weak developer tools are hampering progress for developers. The costs might even be higher for some depending on delays as they try to figure the hardware out.

Thats what I understood anyway. Needless to say the gist is that a AAA game on the PS3 is more then twice as expensive to develop then a similar level of game on the Wii, and a similar level of game on the 360 is just over half the development cost.

So that should answer your question. However there are obviously exceptions to the rule. I would wager that a Mario Galaxy must sell over half a million due to the long development cycle. Halo 3 probably cost a good chunk more then the average AAA title on the 360, and Killzone dear god they better hope it makes a profit. That and Final Fantasy might each need to sell over two million copies before its all done and over with.

 Your article was wrong. It cost twice as much to make a 360 title as a Wii title.

@fkusumot,

I have to agree those numbers looked a bit sketchy to me also. All indications I have seen....ever...indicate that the 360 is a hell of a lot closer in development costs to the PS3 than the Wii.

Just curious, do you have a link to that article still Dodece, kind of curious what the timeframe was and if the guy sites any sources, etc...thanks~

Shenmue cost $70 million; $41 million, that's nothin'. :)

Oh yeah, EA said they spent hundreds of millions on Majestic. What a disaster!

Duke Nukem Forever's total cost for all ten years of development has got to be huge - if they're actually spending any time in development at all, which I sometimes doubt.

I wonder what the cost of DS/PSP games are

I think DS is less than a million, PSP was something really small too, but likely over a million.

 Thats actually a good point, a lot times peopel forget to take into account the handhelds but they do play a pretty big role in all of this.  Developers are afterall looking to make money and install bases and dev costs of the PSP and DS have got to be far more appealing for them than any of the consoles.

I read something a couple years or so back that said the cost of making a PSP game is roughly the same as the cost of making a PS2 game, which is really bad. I'm sure they cost less to make now though. Sony just did a really bad job of providing development tools for the first couple years.  I haven't seen anything on the DS, but I would assume it's signifficantly cheaper. I would guess Dragon Quest IX on the DS has cost more to make than most PSP games.