If you set a reference hardware platform specification, it shouldn't cost more than a few million.
That's right, if they choose a reference hardware platform it would make it less expensive for sure.
The problem of course, is that reference platforms get out of date pretty quickly so it would take more cash to keep getting it ported to new reference platforms. And if the port to a reference platform that was up-to-date when the work started but then took a couple of years to get out of BETA it would also be a bit silly.
There's also the question of what is considered a successful port, just the OS with no app support, the OS + PPC support, WARP support, Open GL support, x68k support etc etc.
