Top ten most expensive games ever made.

Subsequent Pixar movies have all been around $100 million; however, TS1 was not at such a high tech level (compared to the general state of CG at the time) as their other movies. Then again, it was the first CG animated feature ever, and this counterbalances the above (they literally had to invent a lot of stuff to be able to make the movie).

 

Actually, they are. There's some indication that just like with games, studios don't actually know what some films cost to make (or rather, no one can agree on how to do the accounting on a film) -- most budget numbers being hazy approximations. Not to mention that reporting budgets can change the way a studio's investments are looked at -- very often they'll pick the lowest low-ball estimate they can get away with. Particularly if a film didn't do that hot at the box-office.

 

^^ I think I wasn't clear. Meant to say "Hollywood isn't shy about saying how much things cost."

 

Maybe they don't include the hardware, as it is deferred costs, which can be offset with later films also (if it isn't too old by then), if they indeed render in-house.

 

That would be my guess. Steve Jobs pumped a hell of a lot of money into Pixar, and that money must have gone somewhere. If hardware and R&D costs were removed from the equation for Toy Story but not for some of the games (for example AM2 must have been seriously upscaled to produce Shenmue), it might help explain the apparent discrepancy between the cost of games and movies that some people believe exists.

 

Seems to be that way. Pixar has gone through several generations of render servers over the years. They used to have a lot Sun gear back then. These days they have lots of x86 servers.

Typically every movie marks a milestone in PRMan, e.g. Finding Nemo was the first movie where Pixar used raytracing, which they had to add to PRMan (it used to be a scanline-only renderer). Then for Monsters, Inc they had to develop advanced fur shaders, and so on and so forth.

I don't think those software development costs are part of said budget which probably only includes making the movie itself.

 

How much did GTA4 cost?
It should definitely be top of the list, the attention to detail is simply incredible, I struggle to notice any repetition in the city - each suburb has its own look and feel.

And all the periphery content is also ridiculous - TV shows, more than a dozen radio stations, imaginary brands with advertising and full product lines etc.

 

Even if (which I doubt) the cost of the render farm wasn't included in the cost of producing a movie it doesn't matter anyways since video game production doesn't use render farms either.

 

I agree.
They threw man-centuries at that game, and every talent Sega had were pretty much involved in some capacity. Just look at the credits for the music, of course they didn't just have one guy doing music for the game, it reads like a list of the greatest composers at Sega.

And from what I've heard, the actual cost and effect of Shen Mue won't ever be known because it's a most shameful figure for Sega, but the ballpark-figure I've been given is insane.

Like someone said, there's a reason Yu Suzuki was sent off to the Virtua Fighter-gulag.

 

I don't know if I agree that Suzuki was sent to the "Gulag" after Shenmue. He did quite a lot of games after that (Shenmue 2, Outrun, Beach Spikers, VF4 and others). I think it was some internal drama after the combined fiascos of Shenmue Online and an unreleased arcade game that I can't remember the name of...

 

Slightly OT, but if Heavy Rain is successful, I think Sega should redo Shenmue (1-3) for the PS3/360.

 

I don't see the connection between HR and Shenmue...? Sega is already 'redoing' Shenmue. It's called Yakuza.

 

Heavy Rain is a non-core, first-party game. It will be successful if it flushes a few dozen million down the drain, but sells the PS3 to non-gamer customers who enjoy detective/thriller movies.

SEGA is no position to replicate such a project.

 

Ah, I was just thinking game types. It appears to me that the concepts between the two games are similar at a high level.