Bandai say next-gen development will be costly

Bandai say the development costs for next-generation titles will rise far above the costs incurred by current-gen titles.

Shin Onozawa the managing director of Bandai told Bloomberg that next-generation development costs will rise to levels far exceeding that of the current-generation platforms. Onozawa predicts that the investment needed to develop a title for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 could reach a staggering 1 billion Yen (7.3 million Euro).

According to a recent report from the CESA most current generation development averages below 100 million Yen, with Xbox titles averaging 202 million Yen, and PS2 and GameCube titles averaging 96 million Yen. These figures are significantly lower than Onozawa's predicted next-gen costs.

Onozawa added that development costs at Bandai should drop by 20% thanks to their merger with Namco. He also said how development costs should fall once developers become used to the new hardware telling Bloomberg: "Costs will begin to fall a year or so after the consoles are released and game makers get used to the systems."

In the end it looks like consumers will have to pay the bill for the extra development costs, with next-gen titles expected to cost more than the current-gen.