Games production cost

Well made next Gen console with pretty graphics does not come cheap.

GTA IV released in late last month reportedly costs US$100 million to produce. Halo 3 cost about US$65 million in production cost. The risk associated with such project is high. Games takes time to develop. During the development stage, the studio must have deep enough pocket to sustain the project. It must have enough money to cater for overrun in project costs.

Another aspect of the risk is associated with the customer. Will the game get sufficient support from customers? Will the game sales generate enough revenue to cover its production costs? For a game costing US$100 million, it must be able to sell more than 2.5 million copies to break even. Furthermore pirates have found a way to allow one of the high end next gen console to play backup games. It can result in further revenue losses.

To minimise risk and ensure a decent on their investments, more and more console games that used to be exclusive to certain console are going multi-platform. E.g. GTA IV and Devil May Cry 4. When Ubisoft's Assassin Creed was first announced, it was meant to be a PS3 exclusive . However, the game was subsequently launched as a multi-platform game.

Activision's Guitar Heroes series started off on the PS2. Subsequently it also appears on XBox360. Konami's Metal Gear series used to be Playstation exclusive. However MGS2 was also published for XBox. If MGS4 does not do well on the PS3 platform, Konami might launched it on XBox360 too.