According to THQ, the cost of developing games for the Wii are much less than for developing games on the PS3 and 360:
Farrell also talked about developing for the Wii as opposed to the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, noting that it was far less expensive making games for Nintendo’s console. Farrell prefaced his comments by noting that he wasn’t “a development professional,” but he said the development environment for the Wii was similar to the GameCube’s.
“[The Wii] wasn’t a whole new programming environment,” Farrell said. “So we had a lot of tools and tech that work in that environment. So those costs–and again, I hate these broad generalizations–but they could be as little as a third of the high-end next-gen titles… Maybe the range is a quarter to a half.”
For a system that is not much more powerful than the original Xbox, is this really much of a surprise? The Wii won’t even do HD. So of course the cost of developing games for the Wii will be more in line with the cost of developing games for the original Xbox.
Is anyone surprised?
THQ: Wii dev costs fraction of PS3′s, 360′s
But speaking of the Wii, has anyone noticed WiiBits? It’s a cool new site about the Nintendo Wii. I hope it lasts.
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Written by: Blackstaffer
- News Contributor
#1 by JordanR on May 6th, 2006
Well duh!!
Although I must admit, I am looking forward to buying one for my nephew and playing old school favorites every saturday morning. (I am too embarrassed to admit I find next-gen games too challenging, I threw my copy of Ghost Recon out the window!)
#2 by Stevie B on May 7th, 2006
So the Wii is essentially a bit of an upgrade in terms of performance, but will still be more fun than the performance monsters.
Looking forward to getting mine.
#3 by Segitz on May 7th, 2006
Isnt this essentially clear?
I mean, PS2 and XBox and even Gamecube development costs did drop too, or didnt they?
So developement for less sophisticated systems is ALWAYS cheaper than for “real” next gen systems…