Tag Archives: cost

Darryn Bonthuys

It cost $50 million to make God of War: Ascension

April 22, 2013 at 2:30 pm | 29 Comments

It ain’t cheap to make video games these days. Well, the kind that requires voice actors, motion capture, new visual effects and a couple hundred staff members that is. Sometimes, you can get an entire Witcher 2 game done for under $10 million. Other times though? Being Greek truly is costly.


Geoffrey Tim

FFD: Are next-gen consoles going to cost too much?

February 1, 2013 at 10:15 am | 86 Comments

Sony’s set to unveil its new PlayStation pretty soon, apparently – but is that sucker going to cost way more than people will be willing to pay? Think of it this way; Nintendo’s getting a ton of heat at the moment because the perception is that its Wii U costs too much.


Darryn Bonthuys

Want a next-gen console? Start saving!

January 15, 2013 at 1:30 pm | 71 Comments

I’ve got a tin in my bachelor pad (Ladies…), that I’ve been shoving silver coins into. It’s pretty much my next-gen savings fund, and I’m hoping to see that fund GROOOOW throughout the year! Make no mistake, the next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft are going to cost several very pretty pennies. And according to one analyst, quite a few Randelas as well.


Geoffrey Tim

How much does gaming cost you?

November 9, 2012 at 10:30 am | 83 Comments

Gaming, for many of us, is more of a lifestyle than a hobby; it is a privilege. Like most luxuries, it comes an associated cost. In addition to the temporal cost; the time you spend nurturing your achievement or trophy collections there’s also a financial one.

My grandad used to own a fruit stall, All the local kids called him The Bananaman. It was nothing to do with the fruit, He had jaundice.

Darryn Bonthuys

Far Cry 3 explores the cost of becoming a hero

July 30, 2012 at 2:30 pm | 19 Comments

Most games make it pretty easy to become a hero. Get doused in chemicals or find your loved ones murdered, enroll in the montage academy of kicking ass and proceed to layeth the smackdown on numerous henchmen, sub-bosses and the end-game nemesis. But in reality, the toll of becoming Mr Paragon, is extraordinarily high and personal. Which is the approach that Far Cry 3 is taking with their protagonist.


Geoffrey Tim

FFD: Is Next-Gen gaming sustainable?

June 29, 2012 at 10:45 am | 43 Comments

The cost of making triple A games is beyond ludicrous. In the last generation of console games, the PlayStation 2 era, the average cost of developing a blockbuster game was between one and four million US dollars. By 2010, the average cost of development had risen to above 20 million dollars - discounting games with ridiculous budgets, like Grand Theft Auto 4 ($100M), Gran Turismo 5 ($80M), L.A noire ($50M) and APB($50M). That’s without factoring in marketing budgets.


Geoffrey Tim

Nintendo won’t repeat its 3DS mistakes with Wii U

June 26, 2012 at 3:45 pm | 3 Comments

When the 3Ds launched, it did so at a price that many felt was just a tad too high. As a result, sales of the device slumped until the company decided to slash its price in a drastic attempt to further the device’s momentum. Nintendo doesn’t want to repeat that costly cost mistake - so expect the system to be…affordable.


Gavin Mannion

Wii-U not even as powerful as the Xbox 360

April 3, 2012 at 9:00 am | 12 Comments

Nintendo’s next console, the Wii-U, hasn’t been getting a lot of good press since it was announced and this latest set back really isn’t going to go down well with the legions of hard suffering Nintendo fans out there.

According to an anonymous developer the Wii-U is actually not on a par with the Xbox 360 or PS3, it’s actually less powerful and less capable of pushing out the levels of graphics we have come to expect from our current gen consoles. Never mind our next gen.


Geoffrey Tim

How much does the PlayStation Vita cost to make?

January 23, 2012 at 3:30 pm | 14 Comments

The PlayStation Vita will launch in the West on February 22 this year. We’re excited. We’re a little less excited about its price, which will cost $250 (R2699 in South Africa) for the Wi Fi version, and $299 (R3299)for the 3G-enabled one. That’s…a lot of beans. The technical intelligence experts at UBM TechInsights decided to take the thing apart and see what all its constituent pieces were actually worth.

Normally, new hardware is sold at a considerable loss - subsidised by the platform holder so they can make more money on software. It seems that’s not the case with the PlayStation Vita.