SEGA President: Games for a new console generation will cost $70M+ to develop
Stakes are getting higher.
Yukio Sugino thinks that the development cost in Japan is increasing. The new normality with the next generation will be a $70M budgets.
Considering this, SEGA is planning to increase its worldwide presence. 3.5k people are working in the company now, and 1.5k of them are overseas.
Global markets generate 80% of SEGA’s PC & Console revenue. Mobile titles, in reverse, earn 90% of the revenue in Japan, the local market.
The game development price increased sufficiently in the last few years. The Last of Us: Part II cost $220M. Shadow of the Tomb Raider development was somewhere between $75M and $100M. Forspoken, Callisto Protocol, and Saints Row budgets exceeded $100M - and all those projects haven’t found financial success.