E3 06: THQ: Wii dev costs fraction of PS3's, 360's

Yes let's all start trusting conference calls. They're sugarcoated presentations for investors. If developing for the Wii costs $5 cheaper they'll list it as "significantly cheaper."

"shrum91 we knew this a long time ago...SDKs for it are around 2,000 dollars" The SDK has relatively no effect on the cost of development - it's about the content creation (developers, artists...)

Well THQ has a lot of the chop liscenses, but if its cheap for them to make stuff on the Wii its cheap for everyone. They are probably right that the Wii will attract kids, but all three consoles attracted kids, and all three consoles got Spongebob last generation. The fact is the Wii is going to attract a lot of up and coming developers who have great ideas but not a huge budget. Its going to attract the whole range of gamers to, from Spongebob fans to Frat Jocks who love maddens and red steels.

The main reason the Gamecube didn't get much 3rd party support wasn't because of the system itself or because Nintendo catered to any particular demographic, but because of the disc format. They used the small discs for the GC to help cut down on software pirating and such, but it was also harder to port titles to the system so a lot of games that would have otherwise been thrown on all 3 systems went to the PS2 and Xbox. I would imagine that this time around Nintendo is going to go with DVDs and just keep them as protected as possible, whilst the PS3 and the Xbox360 are using the newer, as-for-now foreign HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray. The new formats won't be as easily accepted as DVDs since they've already established a market, but the PS3 and 360 are both going to be key sources to push the two new formats into circulation so on that front it's hard to say whether they'll be more successful or not. If Nintendo goes with a more widely accepted and easily portable format for the Wii, then their 3rd party support will be much better than it was with the GC. Only time will tell how it all ends.

OMG! that freaking rulz! then that might mean that the games are gonna be 50 dollars still for this system!

letapragas, wait wait I am a tool for my opinion... dude grow up. Most of the games from nintendo are aimed at young kids aside from a select few. I know not everyone has 1000 bucks to spend on a system which ever brand it may be...i understand that. I dont care why you buy nintendo games or why you like them,so for you to put that into your statment was a waste. Again in my personal opinion nintendo is for young kids who like childish games, if you like playing games like spongebob or something thats great...with that said to each their own...next time dont get a butt hurt over someone elses opinion.

What I want to know is, what was the price difference between making games for the Gamecube, and making them for the PS2 or Xbox. If it was cheaper making games for the Gamecube, then they didnt have much 3rd party support. Just a food for thought.

that means "more cheap games 4 the wii.."

The games will cost 2-3 times less to make, thus they can afford to sell the games for cheaper. Yeah, I'm gonna look like a fool playing games made by a company that focuses mainly on FUN. And you guys can look cool rolling around laughing with your "top of the line" hardware you just spent a fortune on. DS vs PSP makes it pretty clear that casual gamers want change, not more horsepower. It's funny that people don't play "kiddy" games because they worry about their image. "I don't want to look like a KID when I play VIDEO GAMES."

lower costs mean more games but that means both good games and crap games.

cool

LMAO at all the Sony and MS fanboys when I'm gonna sit on my couch and play MSG4 on PS3, Lost Oddysey on 360 and Red Steel for Wii. You go ahead, and stick to one of them, and bash the other consoles if it makes you feel better. I am gonna get the best from all of them, and Wii will seen then who's laughing. You, the close mined fanboys, ignorant of everything that goes on around you because some big rich company has brainwashed you into believing they are the best... OR me, who learned not to be loyal to anything with a pricetag, but simply folow the art, wherever that may lead.

I agree Omega, if THQ continues with this demographic line, I ain't buying any of their stuff. Rather be playing Red Steel, or Metroid Prime 3 (whatever the hell that'll look like.)

adamwhyvern, how does it scare you? Nintendo has ALWAYS catered to a very young audience. The darkest title on Gamecube was Resident Evil 4. Hell, that was one of the only good titles on it...

we knew it all along :| its good that Wii will be cheaper, but Im not into THQ games anyways, I want to see Metroid Prime 3, Super Smash, Red Steel, Sadness, ETC!!!

I would care about this news article if consoles didn't suck so hard.

"As you probably know, our portfolio maps very, very well to what we think the Wii demographic is going to be." & when the Wii is launched, no one will buy THQ's Spongebob, Airbender and Cars games, because they were wrong when they said this line.

UMmm.. is this actually news? Who thought Wii would cost as much as PS3 or xbox360 to develop for? Wii is a current gen system launching in the next gen era, pretty easy to see why it costs less.

The technology may be behind, but its not like its going to be absolutely terrible. If you don't like the Wii's Demographic then gtfo. Great games don't have to be visually perfect. Games can be huge even w/ not perfect hardware. Wii won't disappoint.

WeeWeeJumbo wrote: IT'S CHEAPER TO DEVELOP SOFTWARE FOR TECHNOLOGY YEARS BEHIND THE COMPETITION'S How is having a controller exponentially more advanced than the standard controllers of PS3 and 360 make it technology years behind the competition? *sniff* *sniff* Whats that smell? Oh, seems like another fanboy making ignorant statements. Graphics do not make the game or the system....take the PSP vs. DS.....nuff said. I'm not saying the Wii will own all, and PS3 and 360 are great competition, but wail til you play the games before you bash.

So the Nintendo Wii might have third party support? That's something unheard of for the Cube!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of SpongeBob. But if THQ says they think they know what the Wii demographic is going to be, and you see them making games based on shows like SpongeBob, Avatar, and the Cars movie, then I don't think I want any part of that console.

daniel the bright side of cheaper devolopment costs are that its taking chances on trying something new won't hurt as much money wise, meaning hopefully more inovation and a chance for smaller companies to make a name for themselves.

Viva Gamecube 1.5 LMAO

I hate that THQ already assumes the Demographic is going to be kids, however Airbender , although a Nickelodeon Cartoon, is one wicked cartoon. Although the animation appeals to kids, the story line , mood, and music definitely make it not very kiddy in my opinion. Try watching a few episodes. It is actually a well written cartoon that not only kids can enjoy but adults as well.

Notice portfolio means every THQ game franchise not just Spongebob, Cars, and Avatar. Pixar movies are watched by tons of adults who also play the games. Same with spongebob and avatar. Those are two hot franchises right now with Cars having the potential to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. Movie games can be quite lucrative for a game studio. And spongebob games sale fairly well and usually get high ratings. Guess what adults who don't watch the shows rate the games as being very fun. It isn't about less resources it's more familiar tools so they don't have to work as long to get the same result on the PS3, Xbox 360. Most studios cannot afford to spend millions on a game people which is what nearly xbox 360 and PS3 game are going to cost. Or do you want to spend eighty bucks on a game with no adds or sixty bucks with a constant stream of in your face burger king like Fight Night Round 3? Why is the PS2 still going to get games three-four years after the PS3 because those studios cannot afford to put those games on the PS3.

People those three games are for the PS2 as well. Try and reread what he said. He said the same game on all three platforms the Wii version will be a quarter to half the cost. Not because of less features, less graphics but because it takes less time to make the game on the Wii platform. When a game costs sixty million dollars to make for the PS3 when the same exact game can be put on the Wii for 20 million dollars with radically dfferent play options due to the wiimote how many studios are going to put out the Wii game? Gamecube didn't have much to differenate itself from the PS2 and Xbox. PS2 was less powerfull then the gamecube which matched the Xbox in performance. People stop falling prey to the megahertz, ram myths. As well as the HD is better visuals myth. Spongebob games sell to every demographic. Lots of adults watch spongebob. I think more adults watch it with their kids then a lot of other children's programming. Notice what he says about the Jaded journalists reaction they were excited to see the wii version. Even Tommy Tallarinco said the controller was interesting when playing the spongebob game. Every non nintendo hater would be orgasmic playing the controller but graphics whores are so in their own little world they will never admit that shiny graphics get boring so fast only the game content is what matters in the end.

Look at all the babies still complaining and posting stupid "who cares" in the comments, wow. Anyway, THQ is a "baby gamer" developer, and all they're are used to is games like spongebob. THQ games like spongebob are also multiplatform, so stop complaining about the game, since there are what, dozens of these sorts of games on the PS2 and Xbox.

"As you probably know, our portfolio maps very, very well to what we think the Wii demographic is going to be." "Currently the publisher has announced Wii games based on the Nickelodeon shows SpongeBob SquarePants and Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as one for Pixar Animation Studios' upcoming film Cars." So in other words guys, they think Wii's demographic will be children. un-freaking-believable....

I'll hold judgement until I actually see something to compare.

Yay so nintendo still will be in 3rd place again.

Evo310whp and Tomtomtom1990 are tools who don't understand that not everyone has the $1000+ for the HD experiance that the Xbox and Playstation provide! Also the reason why i buy a videogame console is to have fun and play the games that i can't play on my computer! Nintento has the best first party games and w/ the Wii they will have games that a computer just dosn't support! Another style of gameplay at a cheap price.

Wow the thing that gets me is not only the cost of the Wii (around 150 to 250USD), but the cost of the games. This is a GREAT move by nintendo, because for the cost of a X360 or PS3 ($400) you can buy a Wii(Lets say: $200) , 3 Controlers(Lets say: $35), 2 Games (Lets say: $40) for a grand price of $385 and after 8% tax thats like $415.80! How great is that? Fun for all and w/o breaking the bank!

THIS JUST IN--IT'S CHEAPER TO DEVELOP SOFTWARE FOR TECHNOLOGY YEARS BEHIND THE COMPETITION'S. FILM AT ELEVEN.

This is very interesting. Less ressources = less money required, but also less time. This could lead to the Wii having more titles than the other two platforms, and since they're shaping up to be mostly exclusives, one really cannot go wrong with that console. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Nintendo's philosophy is the best.

to bad for micro$oft nad playstation.... tho chances are if i get a wii it will only be for the downloadable back library

I really want to buy the dev kit. It will be awsome porting my games to it. And I have all this crazy ideas...

>>great for THQ, but user decide and it won't be Wii. the lower then N64 trend which hit the gamecube is also going to hit the Rev sorry Wii.. .......what?

is this really news? hasn't this been known for some time now? or atleast highly expected.

great for THQ, but user decide and it won't be Wii. the lower then N64 trend which hit the gamecube is also going to hit the Rev sorry Wii..

I'm not a big fan of THQ, but I don't think the low costs only apply to them. I have a tight budget so if lower dev costs means l don't have to pay as much(less than $60+!) for games then that's definitely good news. Also, lower dev costs doesn't mean lower quality games. If the hardware and software are easy to work with then they don't have to spend as much money and time to get the same quality as on other systems, granted, with limited graphics. Again, this is true not only for THQ.

Activities such as church, picnics, Disney movies, and Wii are synonymous. I didn't lose the faith when they took the gore out of Mortal Kombat, but I have now.

re: danielsmith2020 The trouble with cheap development costs though is you get a lot more in the way of crap games. You couldn't be more wrong. In fact, it's the higher cost & greater level of difficulty in creating games for a system that result in a lesser end product, since either the mfr will run out of time or money while their dev team attempts to create a great game on a difficult system, which the PS2 was notorious for and it seems that the PS3 will be even worse in that respect due to the Cell processor, or the developer will lose interest and the game will be stillborn completely [vaporware]. Kudos to Nintendo for following the K.I.S.S. rule [keep it simple, stupid]. This will hopefully enable developers to crank out games rather quickly, easily and inexpensively for this system since it has a dev kit that is already familiar to those that created games for the GC. And that will also, hopefully, woo more studios back to Camp Nintendo.

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People seem think to think that cheaper development costs means crap gamesand thats totally STUPID --------- Well, fanboys usually are idiots.

Des_Eagle wrote: "Until the Wii gets some REAL third-party games (not geared-towards-girls games from Konami), I don't really care." Uh, looks like you need to call Game Informer and find out why you missed your last issue. (Or to be less sarcastic, you might want to check out GameSpot news more often.) UbiSoft is making Red Steel. Look it up. It's not a kids game, and it sounds like it could be quite an innovative title. Do you care now?

"The trouble with cheap development costs though is you get a lot more in the way of crap games." That's a totally unfounded and ignorant statement.