CESA report cites Xbox as most costly platform to develop for

A new report by Japan's Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association has revealed that of all the current generation consoles, Japanese studios find the Xbox to be the most expensive platform to develop for.

CESA calculated that the average cost of producing an Xbox game is 202 million yen (USD 1.82 million) after 28 companies voluntarily disclosed their figures to the association.

In contrast, the CESA report states, it costs an average of 96 million yen (USD 877,000) to develop a game for the PS2. PSP games cost around 90 million yen (USD 822,000), as do GameCube titles, while each Game Boy Advance game costs the developer 53 million yen (USD 484,000).

However, at the other end of the spectrum, the cost of developing a game for Nintendo's new handheld, the DS, stands at only 37 million yen (USD 338, 286).

The figures for the Xbox are skewed somewhat, of course, because so few Japanese studios have ever invested significantly in producing Xbox software - meaning that they don't realise the same economies of scale that they have over the lifespan of the PS2.