GTA IV producer Leslie Benzies has said during an interview with the The Times Online that he believes the blockbuster game has cost Rockstar almost 100 million USD to create and produce, making it by far the most expensive game ever made.
During the interview Benzies also added that over 1000 people worked on the game for 3 and a half years, a huge production by any stretch.
If his estimate is correct than the game’s development costs would make it the most expensive game in the history of consoles, topping Sega’s Shenmue for the Dreamcast which had a 75 million USD development budget.
If retailer estimates are correct however, than the game has already made back its budget worldwide. In the UK, over 600,000 copies were sold on the first day, and analysts have predicted that the game will gross 400 million USD in its first 7 days.
Benzies also took time to talk about the media bashing of Rockstar, claiming that all those in the government and media that bashed the games had never played them.
Why do people object to the game? “You kill prostitutes,” he told the Times Online. “That’s usually the objection.”
“There is a big fear factor here. It’s the coming of the railways. It’s Elvis shaking his hips. It’s cars going over 25 miles an hour and making people explode.”
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SanDisk has announced a new Sansa MP3 player that will sport no internal memory or screen and will instead use a microSD slot to read slotMusic albums.
The Sansa slotMusic Player is tiny and will run on AAA batteries and will cost just $19.99 USD. Making the launch even more notable is the fact that the player can play any files on a microSD as long as they are MP3 or WMA.
There will be a variety of artists such as Rihanna and Daughtry, ABBA and Elvis available on 1GB microSD cards, each of which will cost $15 USD. The microSD albums will also include album art, and liner notes and usually video content. (Which makes no difference for this player)
The files are DRM-free and can be taken off the cards and added to your music libraries on any PC. Each card also comes with a USB adapter to allow users to take the music off.
At $15 it might be a good idea to buy the card, take the music and then reformat the card to use at your own disposal.
