Quote:
Originally Posted by Burns11
A PS3 dev kit can be had for $2000, Wii was $1700 when released (likely lower now), 360 is even cheaper for the smaller developer if you can fit the game within XNA, otherwise you will need a full dev kit of which I am completely blank on cost but it should be no more than $2000. So, to develop for al three, it would be $6000 up front, not too bad considering the extra revenue streams.
Of course, that doesn't include some other fees likely to be associated, but it's the startup cost.
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You are missing quite a lot of additional costs that have to be considered when porting a game to a console.
To build an retail game you have to be in the registered developer programs which aren't free. There's also additional cost for:
- multiple dev kits. A single unit might not be enough for effecient development.
- engine/middleware licensing (you can't use free or OpenSoucre sound/graphic APIs)
- your programers doing the actual work of porting the game
- your programers doing additional work to add required features like achievements/trophies
- additional QA tests on the target plattforms as requested by plattform owner
- general licensing costs to get the approval of the plattform owner
- age ratings in several markets
- additional marketing.
- optional: severe royalties to big name publishers if Microsoft or Sony aren't willing to publish your game themselve and you aren't able to afford being a licensed developer.
Development for XBox Live marketplace of PSN store is cheaper in general but not very attractive since you can't ask for full price on these channels for your full price PC game.
A port, aimed at a retail game on a single Next Gen Console easily reaches 100.000$. Which is about 30% to 50% of the budget typical point and click adventures games have these days.
Of course a port should pay of for most developers but normaly it's hard enough to get the money at all for the actual development of the game.
