[QUOTE="asylumni"]
Ok, since you've mentioned this three times, what makes you think Microsoft didn't invest as much into Forza as Sony put into Gran Turismo? You do realize Turn 10 is an internal developer created as part of Microsoft Game Studios, right? It could actually be MS spending the big buck on this one, seeing as though it was stated during the E3 stage demo on this site, that there are "hundreds" of people just working on the car models for Forza, while PD only has about 110 employees, total.
PBSnipes
Simple economics. Not only does the Gran Turismo series sell significantly more copies than the Forza series, but the GT series is infinitely more important to the overall success of SCEI. Forza is a secondary franchise that at best will sell 3-4 million copies, whereas GT is the biggest Sony franchise (bar none) and at worst will sell 7 million copies (and that's a conservative estimate, the lowest selling GT title is GT2 at 9.37 million units).
So not only will a Gran Turismo title directly bring in more revenue than a Forza title (meaning SCEI can afford to spend more than MS) but as Sony's major system-seller GT will play a significant role in the sale of millions of consoles. The return on investment of a GT title (especially GT5, considering how big a boost it will be for PS3 sales) is so high that development costs are a non-issue. The same can't be said for Forza.
Actually, the same could be said for Forza. MS has proven that they are willing to invest billions in order to compete in this market. They looked very closely at what Sony had to offer and came forward like-for-like with the big hitters from Sony. They saw the success GT garnered and brought out their own game to try and do what Sony did, only better. MS threw billions at Xbox production, why would they limit Turn 10?
Besides, a game's sales is not an accurate indicator of how much is invested in the next iteration. For example, Madden always sells extremely well, but do you really think they invest nearly as much into each iteration as what goes into, say, Call of Duty or Mass Effect each year? There's a reason 2k and EA could get away with the discounted prices they had for a while last gen.
I've provided that the workforce of Turn 10 greatly outnumbers that of PD, what else is there that could account for PD spending so much more on the game? Licensing? Advertisement? Perhaps PD just has a better game room for their programmers? Where is this money going?
Log in to comment