Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack talks about used games effect on development budgets:
"I don't think as an industry we can afford $300 million budgets. Some games can, don't get me wrong - for a game like Call of Duty, if they had a $100 million budget, or whatever their budget is, they can afford it. That's not the industry, that's sort of a one-off.
Perhaps there is a point after which it makes little sense to spend more money as you simply cannot recoup it in the market. I'm guessing this limit is probably closer to $0 than $300 million.
source Gamesindustry International.