Traditional publishers trembling? That would seem unlikely to me given that one of the legends of the game development community only managed to raise a budget equivalent to an average XBLA game.
Second... if you don't try to pace the AAA games on graphics quality or the other de rigeur time and money sinks that add disproportionately little to the final experience, you can do a lot with that amount of money.
I need to change careers.
The common XBLA game probably loses money.