Kojima Productions Denies Metal Gear Solid 4 Cost 60 Million - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 25 February 2010 / 8,970 Views
A news post by Digital Battle detailing the 10 most expensive budgets in gaming history has caused quite a bit of controversy. There have been accusations of the list being inaccurate, and that some numbers had been fabricated.
To add fuel to the discussion, a Twitter post from Kenichiro Imaizumi, from Kojima Productions, denies that the budget cited for Metal Gear Solid 4 ($60 million), is anywhere close to the real budget
"Recently in the news, it's been written that MGS4's development costs crossed 5 billion [yen], or 7 billion. It didn't cost that much. If it did cost that much, it would have been multiplatform. But, of course, the data can't fit."
5 billion yen is, according to the current exchange, $55 million; 7 billion yen is $78 million.
It's interesting, also, to see that a member of Kojima Productions is saying that the game would have been multiplat if costs had escalated that high. Apparently, costs were low enough that it was justified to keep it exclusive.
Source: Andriasang
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@ huaxiong90 - "MGS4 on 360" will remain a 'hot' article for a long time.
@Attoyou: Exactly my point. I thought people moved on from 2007 and 2008. But apparently I was wrong.
2 years later ? does any one still care if this goes to 360 ? REALLY ? Just get a ps3, Besides some of you guys said that its just a big movie...LOL suddenly Its GOTY And its going to be on 360! .
multiplatform games are always more expensive. Basically you have to develop a game twice, only the story aspects not. But still, multiplatform are more profitable.
example 1: you make a profit from 3 million units sold on both platforms, but you have 60 million develop cost.
example 2: you have 2 million units sold on one platform only, but only 30 million development cost.
I'm using 60 dollars as game price, since that's common.
example 1: You make 120 million dollars profit.
example 2: You make 90 million dollars profit.
The developer has to sell at least 2.5 million copies to make the exclusive game more profitable than a mulitplatform release. And I think the margin would be way more than just 0.5 million units between most multis and exclusives.
Doesn't really matter. At >4 million in sales the game made a tidy profit even at 60 million production budget.
@oni-link: Actually, no the Xbox 360 can't do everything the PS3 can plus more. Square Enix have said the PS3 is more powerful, John Carmack has also said so. Not only that, but your link talks about 2009, where they didn't have many big releases, so your point is moot. Are we still beating this dead horse? For the love of god.
@avirace
http://www.kombo.com/article.php?artid=13802
obviously if they ported this to the X360 they wouldn't be suffering such a huge drop in profit. C'mon a multi-platform MGS will only boost Konami's bottom line and that's what is important not only for Konami but also it's investors!!! There IS still no reason for "3rd Parties" to do exclusives between HD systems as they are technically identical in performance to each other. Mass Effect IS a second party I believe so that explains a lot but I am not against it going multi if it helps Bioware an as long as they put equal effort into each port!!!
LOL...yeah I can't believe he called me kiddo I've been gaming even before he was born if he was born in 84!!! Hoops has no idea at all what he is talking about much thanks Cueil...he just made ahh forget it!!! =)
@ Hoops84, just wow...
@Hoops84 almost every single thing you said can be rebutted with proof. No one on here will give you that kind of time so I will inform you of your vast ignorance and allow you to go educate yourself.
@oni-link
Come on now. Everyone knows, everyone talks about it, even 360ers including me, owning all 3, a gaming computer, psp, ps2, gamecube, the last 2 being for the sake of keeping the memories of the old days. Bluray is TRUE HD where has teh 360 IS sub HD. You say it does the same things, and often times better? Like playing blurays in true 1080 HD? Oh, wait, it can't.. It's hardware is just not up to par with the PS3's and that is not anyones fault. It's just the facts, no need to get on here and flame your 12 year old ignorance around. Silly kiddo.
so this must mean that metal gear rising has a bigger budget. i just hope to god they develop it on the ps3 first and then port it to 360(multiple discs are fine right?). MGS4 was quality and i hope it continues with MG rising.
@oni-link
Konami has not had an unprofitable quarter in a couple of years. I do not know where you got your data, but it is obviously incorrect. This game is not going muliplatform so go ahead a get a ps3, it is 299 now.
This just proves how much of a joke indie journalism is. These guys pull out numbers out of their asses and advertise their crap on N4G to get a few hits on their sites instead of giving us actual gaming report.
sub-HD on the X360 is a big farce!!! X360 can do everything PS3 can w/ sometimes better results!!! It's really up to Konami but I think it would be wise for them not to miss out on a viable market by not going 100 % multi on these HD games!!! If they did so in the beginning they wouldn't be in the financial woe they are currently in!!!
LOL...
boberman
Bungie Already admitted that last 1,2 weeks before release it was over 160 million.
@ grimygunz
We all played the game with 4 separate installation screens. I think, we could all stomach swapping disks. but admittingly, the company thinks multi-platform is much more profitable - and it makes sense to believe that.
Although, I couldn't see MGS4 on the 360 - it'd be so weird, lol
@hunter_alien
That's because anyone who doesn't meet a deadline falls on his own sword in shame.
@oni-link
do ya really wanna play MGS4 on 3 discs?
it was the first game to use a dual layer blu-ray disc.
also bayonetta PS3 was developed by SEGA rather than Platnium games the actual development team.
oni-link:
Mass Effect 2 please. Otherwise stfu about how "there should be no exclusives between the HD consoles"
They also stated that halo 3's marketing campaign was over 200 million.
So maybe this proves that the cost of making video games really hasn't exploded as much as some have thought. But even if it cost $60 mil, they made it back and then some. I doubt Sony actually paid for this, especially since Kojima prefers the Playstation brand. He's such a cool guy, too. To thank the American audience for making MGS1 such a hit, we got MGS2 before Japan did.
Not surprised... Japanese development teams seem to manage their budget better then western ones ;-)
oni-link yes! good that you mention games that are ported from xbox to ps3 ... :) irony as this porting is so easy and wont cause the ps3 version to be slightly inferior
If it went Multiplatform it would certainly be SubHD on X360. Look at Final Fantasy XIII. And besides, somewhere in the game there is a joke about disc changing (very, very funny). And Otacon uses Apple computer (Apple payed Konami, obviously!). This game is too Sony. Who played know that.
@Soriku.
No, Peace Walker is now it's own thing. MGS5 is still yet to be revealed :-P
I still don't see why this game didn't go multi-platform! There is no reason for exclusivity between HD consoles anymore as both systems perform identical to each other. The arguement of PS3 being anyway superior to X360 is crap when comparing multi games that perform better with X360 ie ghostbusters and bayonetta!
You can all speculate that Sony paid them money, in order to try and contradict "Sony doesn't pay for exclusives" but did you ever stop and think.....maybe it DID cost less than $60M? Of all the franchises in the world that they would pay to keep exclusive, why this one? Final Fantasy sells way more, GTA sells way more. Why would they save this one out of those?
Grasping at straws....smh
INB4 MGS4 on 360 :P
OT: I thought $ony didn't pay for exclusives... hmmm...
whatever they say, Sony paid them BIG to keep this game exclusive.
Multiplatform confirmed? :)
I wonder where the original article got their numbers from.
My thread was linked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D :-D
Can't you see what is hidden in the lines? Sony gave money for them. Perhaps the game really cost 60 million dollars, but Konamy did not put all their money on that. That is the explanation for "If it did cost that much, it would have been multiplatform" .
best game on all console's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
360 development is expensive now? O_o;
Well, that's that.
And the Multiplat thing is interesting. Could we see MGS5 as a PS3 Exclusive still? :-P
I disagree with the logic in the last paragraph. I don't think he was saying "if we spent a lot more money making it, we would've made it multiplatform in order to get more money back."
I think he was saying costs being low like that are indicative of a game / development time + resources only being on one platform. A game with a much higher cost like the 55-78million implied, would most likely have such a cost due to being developed on both platforms.
Right.. Maybe it didn't cost that much to produce the game.. That's why he says it would be multi-plat.. But.. What about other stuff? You know, like advertising for example?
Also, what is a "Tweeter post"?
the comment about the multiplate is interesting
I'm pretty sure 'costed' is not a word. I think the word you were aiming for is... 'cost'.
