'Halo 3' cost £15 million to develop

Xbox 360 best-seller Halo 3 not only received rave reviews from the critics, but it is also likely to pick up gasps from industry outsiders after it was revealed that the game cost an estimated £15 million to develop, with several more millions spent on marketing.

The BBC has reported that costs for developing the latest hit games is rocketing, with more developers taking risks in an attempt to recoup the potential lucrative rewards.

While Halo 3 had a major budget for a video game, the fact that it brought in a record $170 million on day one will have put its investors' minds at rest. The title earned the most ever for an entertainment product in one day, even outdoing movie Spider-Man 3, the biggest-grossing Hollywood film.

But the spiralling costs is worrying developers. In 1982, Namco reportedly created Pac-Man for $100,000. Today, the average PS3 game is estimated to cost $15 million to develop.

Founder of Blitz Games Philip Oliver said: "These costs have risen so sharply because of the complexity of the devices which we are writing the games for.

"The costs have risen most sharply on the graphics side. We have entered a new era of high-definition video gaming.

"This has led to team sizes having to increase in this area, for new tools to be created for this and generally the costs are rocketing. This is actually having a severe hit on the industry."