Topic: Is it cheap or not?

[)Dark-LInk(]

Ive heard alot of people say that Developing for the gba is cheap and most companies can afford it. but i have also heard that its expensive cuz of the cartridges so whos right?anyone got a source that shows info on this?

[Odeix]

This may not answer any technical part of your question but whether it's cheap or expensive... developers don't have a choice. The GBA is the best handheld market by far so there isn't any platform to compare development costs to (i.e. who cares how easy it is to develop for the N-gage?). Plus, there are so many crappy licensed games on the GBA that I think it's a safe assumption that it's an easy move for any company... otherwise we'd see less games.

[ActorJ]

the actual development of GBA games in cheap when compared to todays multi-million dollar budgeted mega games.

However, the cost of manufacturing is very high. Therefore, developing for GBA is a high risk proposition. Manufactuers have to be sure they have a hit on their hands, and have to properly gage how many carts yto make at one time. Make to many and you end up with a glt of games that just cost you 15 dollars a pop to put together, and aren't ever going to sell. Make too few, and you will sell out, and by the time you manufacturer, the game will no longer be marketable.

[KDR_11k]

Well, as long as they don't repeat Atari's mistakes (manufacturing more Pacman modules than consoles sold, making 9M copies of ET...).
The actual development is fast and thus cheap. I've heard from developers busting out a game in 6 weeks (some Alfred Chicken game). If you manage to survive THAT you're very likely proud of the game no matter if it's a super seller.

[HolyPaladin]

Quote
Originally posted by: ActorJ
Therefore, developing for GBA is a high risk proposition.

Not anymore than making a game for PS2/GCN/Xbox.  With development costs ranging from $5 million to $10 million for a single game, and some going much higher ($20 million and beyond), a PS2/GCN/Xbox game has to be a real hit, too, or else millions of dollars are at stake.  If we had a developer called, say, Monkey Humper Studios, and it made an Xbox title by the name of Butt-Crust and Earl, let us say that this Butt-Crust and Earl game doesn't hit it big by a long shot.  In fact, it sells only 20,000 copies at $50 before getting a price slash down to $35.  Even at $35, Butt-Crust and Earl only sells an additional 75,000 copies.  That is a grand total of $3,625,000 going into the drawers of retailers.  Only part of that makes its way into the hands of our Monkey Humper Studios, which spent $8,250,000 making it.  Not good.

[jasonditz]

Its an open platform, more or less (Arm chip IIRC) so actual development should be quite easy. There are GBA emulators... set up a gcc cross compiler and get to coding.  The costs of getting the cartridges mass produced are higher than a CD, of course, but not absurdly so.