Wii dev costs fraction of PS3's, 360's

[DiemetriX]

Publisher talks cost and ease of development for Nintendo's next-generation system. "One of the things we like about that platform is the development costs...on the Wii are nowhere near what they are on the PS3 and Xbox 360. That's something that's quite encouraging."

 

Source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6149154.html

[Smowza]

it's funny how they praise the system and then dont give it lots of support, unless e3 proves me wrong *starts praying*). I notice the THQ guy said it's costs between a quater and a half of the dev costs of the ps3 and 360... i hope that doesn't mean they only put between a quater and a half of effort into developing for Wii.

[Sixfold01]

I really do hope they get more support for the low cost. The low dev kits also allows new developers to get into the video game designing field and actually afford it! I love PS3 and X360's graphics, but I really hope Wii blows them away at E3! Its almost here!!! :P

[pedrocasilva]

it's funny how they praise the system and then dont give it lots of support, unless e3 proves me wrong *starts praying*). I notice the THQ guy said it's costs between a quater and a half of the dev costs of the ps3 and 360... i hope that doesn't mean they only put between a quater and a half of effort into developing for Wii.

I think Nintendo really narrowed it down this time, it's alot cheaper... so there's no reason to not support it...

 

Recently the devs had to higher the costs of games to the consumers with X360 because they would loose profit otherwise, the games are getting expensive, some of them more expensive than a Hollywood film... Nintendo isn't trying to lower the prices...

 

So this means instant profit for the developers, since Gamecube is a pretty mature system right now and Wii is similar, so it's really cheap... and they are even cheaper (the devkit's) than PSP ones... and since it's more powerfull you can do a gamecube quality game easily without optimizing much... This means it's really cheaper. no HD shortens the development time and it's also cheaper.

 

the reason why PSP is getting small support from third parties is mostly because it costs nearly as much (well a bit less) as developing for Ps2 who has a pretty bigger userbase... developers simply don't see much of a advantage in doing so. DS by it's turn can be even cheaper than GBA (if developers go for 2D) so it's really a win-win situation, that's why it has so much support.

 

Sony is expecting that while raising the bar of dev costs for next generation some developers will really dig PSP because suddently it'll be cheap and affordable, Nintendo Wii seems to keep costs at Gamecube Level though so that could be a threat to PSP, specially considering the dev kits are even cheaper than PSP ones.

 

I think Wii will be a major competitor in development prices with PSP, I just don't know if this is good or bad, for the games (mainly third party ones).

 

Nevertheless... it's a pretty good bet, Wii versions can afford to sell less because they can turn a profit easier, so if Wii turns out to be a sucess developers will be pretty happy supporting it.

 

EDIT: This is just my prediction though.

[Pit-Jr]

You left out the best part!

 

As you probably know, our portfolio maps very, very well to what we think the Wii demographic is going to be."

 

Translation: ''You're all a bunch of Nickelodeon-watching lo$er$!''

 

Let the pigeon-holing begin

[djamb3]

WTF? how can a console designed to the non gamers have just the kids as buyers? I mean he certainly doesn't know the DS....And THQ launched day of reckoning. How can he says such a stupid think for a console that didn't even appeared....

 

Oh well, it's good about the lower costs but I was expecting a litlte less than one quarter...

[pedrocasilva]

WTF? how can a console designed to the non gamers have just the kids as buyers? I mean he certainly doesn't know the DS....And THQ launched day of reckoning. How can he says such a stupid think for a console that didn't even appeared....

 

Oh well, it's good about the lower costs but I was expecting a litlte less than one quarter...

it's probably best than one quarter, he even mentioned half the cost, considering all the simpler texture work and overall development time... A exclusive game must be real cheap compared to a Ps3 exclusive... but of course we're talking about third parties here, maybe multiplatform games.

[djamb3]

The best of this is really for new and small producers who don't have that huge ammonts of money to produce a game with HD (like crossbeam studios or nibris).e3 is almost here.

 

merda que ainda tenho teste pa fazer incluindo um de fisica na terça.diz m la cm é k vou ter cabeça pakilo...ai ai.mx k tamos aki a fzr a esta hora pedrocas?lolol

[pedrocasilva]

The best of this is really for new and small producers who don't have that huge ammonts of money to produce a game with HD (like crossbeam studios or nibris).e3 is almost here.

 

merda que ainda tenho teste pa fazer incluindo um de fisica na terça.diz m la cm é k vou ter cabeça pakilo...ai ai.mx k tamos aki a fzr a esta hora pedrocas?lolol

indeed I'm curious about what crossbeam and nibris have up their sleeves. And on that matter, on studios that "never released a game" I think we have Zoonami with project zero, and the ones doing Ressonance (if the rummor is true). although these latter two have experienced people who already did games in the past. I think that number is bound to increase.

 

-------------------------

Teste de fisica na terça? isso calha mesmo bem... eu não teria cabeça dado que é no mesmo dia da conferencia da Wii De resto... ando aqui a estas horas basicamente a treinar as directas para a semana da E3, mais vale começar já a descambar para depois não me dar o sono mas por hoje de treino já chega, vou dormir.

[Nintendork]

They cost a fraction of the freaking PSP developper kit, we've known this for a while.

 

71 days old. Revolution Report.

 

The developers stated that the console's SDK costs a relatively meager $2000. By comparison, the PlayStation 2 SDK was priced about $20,000 per kit at the console's launch. Even the original PlayStation's SDK weighed in between $4000-5000 at the beginning of that system's life span. Notably, the inexpensive nature of the SDK is in line with Nintendo's goal of lowering development costs.

It also spawned this rumour:

 

"On a final note, most studios working on Revolution titles think the console could retail under $200 US, possibly as low as $150."

 

Obviously this refers to the developper kit which was the one before final, with few developpers outside of Japan recieving the final dev kit yet.

 

But this doesn't tell us much new besides that everything is still going to plan, obviously the PS3 and 360 kits are going to cost significantly more.

[Pit-Jr]

Theyre referring to game development cost, not just the development kit, thats the whole point of the article

[Nintendork]

Of course it does for THQ, they're not doing anything 'new'

Hahaha can't judge all developpers by what THQ say.

 

I think they'll probably have the lowest dev costs on the console unless they release polarium for Wii.

[pedrocasilva]

^ don't start it again people the name is final... no use to complain or whine about it.

 

THQ will probably support the Wii with some shooters so it's really not the case. anyway they develop to where the money is, so we can just hope that more profits come for Wii software sales.

[Tellyn]

Just because PS3 and Xbox360 can use HD and high power graphics doesn't mean developers will use them to the full potential. If they do, it will take about 2 years to make a game using the full power. Wii probably has nicer looking graphics than both consoles.

[pedrocasilva]

Just because PS3 and Xbox360 can use HD and high power graphics doesn't mean developers will use them to the full potential. If they do, it will take about 2 years to make a game using the full power. Wii probably has nicer looking graphics than both consoles.

erm... don't go there... lol... Wii will not have nicer graphics than any of them... in the best chance they'll be on par but still it's a inferior console, it'll not surpass. that doesn't mean the exclusives won't be beautiful and maybe you won't take that much notice.

 

and two year cycles... how many years took RE4, Zelda Twilight Princess, OoT, Mario 64 and others to make? for next we are talking of bigger cycles or... bigger teams to maintain the same cycle... the studio who did metal gear solid 2 had about 30/40 people, now for Metal Gear Solid 4 they have more than 150 people (I think) it's like a mega-production and that's the way to go currently, that's one of the reasons it is so expensive... because it really requires a lot more work.

[Pit-Jr]

as long as Nintendo steers clear of photorealisic graphics, theyre games can and will look fine.

 

to give an example: Fight Night 3

 

At a glance, it looks almost real. I was astounded when i played it at Wal-mart. about 5 minutes into it, i was wishing it was Punch Out instead. The past-generation gameplay flaws creeped in and the game became ugly to me. back to back load times, sluggish boxer movement, collision-detection issues, and repetetive KO cinemas

[ShadowV7]

Yea I read this not so long ago.It is great news and I hope we get so see a lot of games from other little 3rd parties.Some other 3rd parties don't want to make as much games for the Wii as PS3/Xbox 360 because they don't know if it will do well or not I suppose.If it does well we will see more support.

[DCK]

Lot of this we knew. I hate the part of THQ's demographic predictions, but realistically speaking there's a good chance they're right. A family console may well aim for kids, like most family movies have a tendency to be aimed at the younger audience.

 

Like pedrocasilva said, Wii dev cycles will probably remain as long as they were with the Cube, only this time other platforms may take longer. I think most studios making big games for the PS3 and 360 will probably only release one or two games this generation.

[James McGeachie]

Just because PS3 and Xbox360 can use HD and high power graphics doesn't mean developers will use them to the full potential. If they do, it will take about 2 years to make a game using the full power. Wii probably has nicer looking graphics than both consoles.

 

The PS3 and 360 have multicore processors, they could still be squeezing more and more power out of them 4 or 5 years from now. The Wii has one processor that on its own is about a fifth as powerful as a single core of the 360's processor. In other words, the very best Wii visuals possible will probably be "equivalent" to some of the decent looking first gen 360 games and they'll be able to squeeze out all of Wii's potential in next to no time since it's easy to develop for.

 

Of course, like Nintendo have said, art styles play a big part in how well a game looks anyway, titles like Okami on PS2 could be described as visually stunning and beautiful even now despite being on an incredibly aged system.

[DCK]

CPU says nothing about graphics nowadays, the GPU handles all of the visuals and the 360 blows away the Wii on that if we are to believe IGN's specs. Not even first gen 360 games can be matched on those specs because of lack of shaders.

 

If the IGN specs were only the second devkit however, it shouldn't be a problem to get make first gen 360 graphics.

[Etymotic]

Another side effect of low cost and new controller is, the playing field will be very different. Wii's low cost is part of this. If I were a new dev with a great idea, I won't stand a chance graphically vs Square Enix. Put it out on PS3 is a suicide because PS3 buyers are probably graphix whores. Or at least people dish out so much because they want to have their share of eye-candy. Reviews of games will reflect that.

 

My point is, the way games get judged will vary on Wii. I reckon PS3 games tend to hinge on graphical scores, a lot more so because that's their territory in marketting their console. Great idea + average graphics will probably get like 65% in PS3 reviewer, but 85% from Wii reviewer.

 

Small devs can realistically aim for a decent profit and fame if they have good ideas.

[pedrocasilva]

The Wii has one processor that on its own is about a fifth as powerful as a single core of the 360's processor.

you're completly wrong... double the CPU on GC equals to one core in X360 running general purpose because it's really a "naked" chip pipeline on Xbox 360 and not that effective... also small pipeline with like 5 stages against a pipeline of 30 stages... so there.

 

AMD beats intel with less speed because it has a shorter pipeline... you see... preston is slower than northwood (pentium 4 cores) because the extra cache on preston required a longer pipeline, the longer the pipeline the more you loose with cache misses, Pentium 4 had the biggest pipeline stage-wise but now xenon and cell are on that level... but pentium 4 had a way to avoid the consequences of cache misses that xenon hasn't and still it lost speed, you see... Xenon has a cache miss of 5% this means then you have to wait as much as 26 cycles(?) before you can use the pipeline again, meaning basically you have to clean the pipeline of instructions. trust me... they are really weak, good fill rate... but sh*t performance... otherwise you wouldn't have PowerPC architecture at 3,2 GHz when the real deal from IBM only reaches 2,5 GHz with extreme cooling. their advantage is multi-core solutions meaning you can dedicate a cpu just to one task even if it's weak. but nintendo has no problem equaling one of those cores with a sub 1 GHz CPU... trust me. it's not one fifth... it's equivalent.

 

A Xenon single core is equal, performance-wise to a Pentium celeron 1,7 GHz (or a PentiumIII 1,4 GHz for that matter) it's really about double that of the original Xbox.

 

jeez people stop judging things only looking at the numbers...

CPU says nothing about graphics nowadays, the GPU handles all of the visuals and the 360 blows away the Wii on that if we are to believe IGN's specs. Not even first gen 360 games can be matched on those specs because of lack of shaders.

 

If the IGN specs were only the second devkit however, it shouldn't be a problem to get make first gen 360 graphics.

CPU can be a big bottleneck when pushing a GPU, if it doesn't keep up, but yeah, that shouldn't be a problem with specific optimization and a closed architecture like consoles... still I would like to see more powerful CPU's in single core this generation.