Reggie Fils-Aime talks Wiiconomics

Nov. 28 9:17 AM by Lynxara

For some reason, this otherwise excellent article from CNET's News.com is really focused on the possibility of Nintendo turning the Wii into a set-top box, but that's not the interesting part of this article. Read farther down to see Reggie Fils-Aime sharing some remarkably candid information about how Nintendo and their licensees can turn a profit. Here's an especially juicy quote...

Developing a game for the DS costs a few hundred thousand dollars. Thus, Nintendo has to sell 100,000 only [sic] copies of a game to make money on it.

Wii games cost a little more. Developing a game for Wii might cost $5 million to $10 million, including all of the marketing costs.

By contrast, developing a game for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 can cost $20 million to $50 million, Fils-Aime asserted. As a result, a developer needs to sell 1.3 million to 1.5 million copies of a game to turn a profit, he argued.