Video Game Sales Thread - Nintendo/Microsoft Post Profits, Sony/EA In The Red

Couscous

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/ps3-has-lost-more-money-than-ps2-generated-at-peak/?biz=1

While Sony has already made big strides in 2008 and the company's gaming division did record a profit of about $51 million during its last quarter (April-June) based on stronger sales of PS3 hardware and software, it's no secret that the expensive PS3 has been a loss leader for the company. In 2008, Sony lost $1.16 billion and in 2007 the company lost $2.16 billion, meaning that overall the PS3 investment has cost Sony over $3.3 billion.

What's really surprising, however, is that Sony has already hemorrhaged more cash on the PS3 than it made selling PlayStation 2s during the entire five years of its peak. This comes from industry veteran David Perry, who cited new data from DFC Intelligence during a speech at the Games Convention in Leipzig. Perry, according to 1UP, was talking about how Sony has invested an enormous amount in this console generation and to make the most of it the company will likely extend this cycle as far as it can – even longer than the PS2.

Like most hardware in the typical "razor and blades" business model, Sony did lose money on the PS2 initially as well, but it didn't take long for Sony to streamline the system, make it profitable and then of course the company went on to sell over 120 million units worldwide. If Sony can follow a similar pattern, maybe just maybe they'll be able to breakeven (or even profit) on the massive PS3 investment.

0blique

That's not really surprising. People have been mentioning that for some time now.

cloudeagle

Also the PS2 didn't make quite as much profit as such a monster success would suggest, so the bar isn't quite as high as you'd think. Someone needs to unleash a squad of efficiency experts over at Sony.

Guek

at least Sony is doing much better in terms of mindshare than they are with their account books. I think the fact that they're still considered a viable player in the gaming industry is their number one asset to protect at the moment. It'll likely be all they can hope for until they can start fresh with the PS4

Guek

cloudeagle wrote: »

Also the PS2 didn't make quite as much profit as such a monster success would suggest, so the bar isn't quite as high as you'd think. Someone needs to unleash a squad of efficiency experts over at Sony.

too bad they're all over at nintendo

wyrlss

cloudeagle wrote: »

Eh, we might get another Max Payne. For some reason there's a Max Payne movie coming out this fall, starring Mark Walberg of all people.

Then again, the Dungeon Siege movie didn't exactly revive that franchise.

They should save money by modding the old engine a bit to work on the Wii.

JCRooks

slash000 wrote: »

Anyway, it's good to hear that, at least, Crysis didn't lose money, that it at the very least paid for itself - and in fact sold well compared to most games. And while it's still useful to look at games in terms of 'selling well' and 'selling poorly' compared to their budgets, it's also important to remember that some companies' expectations of sales are really high (like about 2 million) and some are really low (like Atlus games with sub-100k expectations), and some are in the middle (with sales expectations between 400k-500k). It just varies a lot across all games and companies.

Yup! That's an excellent summary of everything we've been talking about.

The tricky thing will be finding out what the company expectations are. Some may provide estimates of raw game sales, many may not. I have to imagine it's a pretty closely guarded secret for some. (You don't want to let outside folks know just how much you over or underestimated a game's success)

You should be able to get estimates of earnings per share pretty easily, from financial reports. However, it's essentially an aggregate of everything about the company. It won't be that helpful for large businesses like MS or Sony, that are in several different businesses.

Speaking of Sony, I wonder what internal expectations they had of the PS3 and how it compares to now. Certainly they vastly overestimated how popular it was going to be. I'm curious how disastrous it is. How soon do they think they can recover? How does it affect the rest of the company?

Xenogears of Bore

Well, for all it's graphical power Crysis doesn't waste money on getting top tier voice acting or outside help on FMVs or licensed music or any of the other frills that drive the costs of other high production games up.

Also unlike Farcry it looks like they are trying to make more than one game using the same tech.

cloudeagle

JCRooks wrote: »

Speaking of Sony, I wonder what internal expectations they had of the PS3 and how it compares to now. Certainly they vastly overestimated how popular it was going to be. I'm curious how disastrous it is. How soon do they think they can recover? How does it affect the rest of the company?

Well, it was disastrous enough for the suits to fire Ken Kutaragi, who until then had almost godlike power over the company. Seriously, the guy could make decisions without approving them through his superiors. And he was out within a few short months.

Surely someone can dig up the company's sales estimates made before the PS3's launch, unfortunately I'm getting close to having dinner with friends.

How soon can they recover? If we're talking about just the game division, the losses are so vast they may well never turn a profit on the PS3. Sure, it all depends on game sales and how fast they have to price drop, but it's looking like a damn tough feat. The game division is improving now, but not quite fast enough to really erase the loss.

How does this affect the company? Sony's game division seems to be proportionally bigger within the company than Microsoft's but not really big, so it's not that much of a drag assuming everything else goes well. But everything else isn't going well. Profits are down nearly 50% from this time last year ($326.9 million compared to $620 million) since movie revenues are slow and the wireless division is struggling.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/29/news/companies/sony.ap/index.htm

Guek

JCRooks wrote: »

Speaking of Sony, I wonder what internal expectations they had of the PS3 and how it compares to now. Certainly they vastly overestimated how popular it was going to be. I'm curious how disastrous it is. How soon do they think they can recover? How does it affect the rest of the company?

well, it got kutaragi fired, didn't it?

Couscous

Guek wrote: »

JCRooks wrote: »

Speaking of Sony, I wonder what internal expectations they had of the PS3 and how it compares to now. Certainly they vastly overestimated how popular it was going to be. I'm curious how disastrous it is. How soon do they think they can recover? How does it affect the rest of the company?

well, it got kutaragi fired, didn't it?

He was kicked upstairs and then retired.

Guek

now that Ken is officially "retired" as well, I have these odd glimpses of some kind of japanese celebrity death match between kutaragi and yamauchi

cloudeagle

titmouse wrote: »

Guek wrote: »

JCRooks wrote: »

Speaking of Sony, I wonder what internal expectations they had of the PS3 and how it compares to now. Certainly they vastly overestimated how popular it was going to be. I'm curious how disastrous it is. How soon do they think they can recover? How does it affect the rest of the company?

well, it got kutaragi fired, didn't it?

He was kicked upstairs and then retired.

Essentially fired twice. Also remember it's extremely rare for a big Japanese company to outright get rid of a poorly-performing exec; they're just typically moved to important-sounding positions with no real power to get them out of the way.

Couscous

Guek wrote: »

now that Ken is officially "retired" as well, I have these odd glimpses of some kind of japanese celebrity death match between kutaragi and yamauchi

I'm imagining something more like The Most Dangerous Game with Ken being hunted.

Xenogears of Bore

Most of the people directly involved at the very highest levels of Sony who worked on the PS3 were cast aside, left the company, or retired.

JCRooks

cloudeagle wrote: »

How does this affect the company? Sony's game division seems to be proportionally bigger within the company than Microsoft's but not really big, so it's not that much of a drag assuming everything else goes well. But everything else isn't going well. Profits are down nearly 50% from this time last year ($326.9 million compared to $620 million) since movie revenues are slow and the wireless division is struggling.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/29/news/companies/sony.ap/index.htm

Hmm, I thought the games division was a significant chunk of Sony. Certainly much more so that the games division for MS, at least. The fact that the company overall is still making a profit, albeit not nearly as much as it expected, is good but not entirely healthy. It's definitely much better than being completely in the red though. And seeing how the games division is finally starting to become profitable again, means that things are looking up.

So yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if everyone at a high level who pioneered the PS3 are long gone, but the ones who are working on it now, trying to "right the ship" are trying to be positive.

Couscous

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6196251.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6196251

As if there was any doubt about it, the Entertainment Software Association today signaled that antipiracy efforts will continue to be its major focus. The gaming-industry trade group announced today that Kenneth Doroshow has been named its next general counsel. Doroshow most recently worked as the former senior vice president of litigation and legal affairs for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), where he fought legal battles to uphold the copyright interests of record labels.

Among Doroshow's projects during his time with the RIAA were antipiracy lawsuits against LimeWire, Usenet.com, and AllofMP3.com. Prior to that, he served as senior counsel for the US Department of Justice's computer crime and intellectual property section. In that role, Doroshow is credited with playing "a key role in the largest-ever multinational criminal investigation of software piracy over the Internet."

Doroshow will assume the duties of the ESA's general counsel next month.

This isn't going to end well for anybody.

Inglorious Coyote

titmouse wrote: »

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6196251.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6196251

As if there was any doubt about it, the Entertainment Software Association today signaled that antipiracy efforts will continue to be its major focus. The gaming-industry trade group announced today that Kenneth Doroshow has been named its next general counsel. Doroshow most recently worked as the former senior vice president of litigation and legal affairs for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), where he fought legal battles to uphold the copyright interests of record labels.

Among Doroshow's projects during his time with the RIAA were antipiracy lawsuits against LimeWire, Usenet.com, and AllofMP3.com. Prior to that, he served as senior counsel for the US Department of Justice's computer crime and intellectual property section. In that role, Doroshow is credited with playing "a key role in the largest-ever multinational criminal investigation of software piracy over the Internet."

Doroshow will assume the duties of the ESA's general counsel next month.

This isn't going to end well for anybody.

Dear ESA,

Taking notes on how to run an trade group by watching the RIAA is not a good idea.

0blique

Maybe they'll see it as how not to do it.

Probably not, though.

Henroid

titmouse wrote: »

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6196251.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6196251

As if there was any doubt about it, the Entertainment Software Association today signaled that antipiracy efforts will continue to be its major focus. The gaming-industry trade group announced today that Kenneth Doroshow has been named its next general counsel. Doroshow most recently worked as the former senior vice president of litigation and legal affairs for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), where he fought legal battles to uphold the copyright interests of record labels.

Among Doroshow's projects during his time with the RIAA were antipiracy lawsuits against LimeWire, Usenet.com, and AllofMP3.com. Prior to that, he served as senior counsel for the US Department of Justice's computer crime and intellectual property section. In that role, Doroshow is credited with playing "a key role in the largest-ever multinational criminal investigation of software piracy over the Internet."

Doroshow will assume the duties of the ESA's general counsel next month.

This isn't going to end well for anybody.

Oh, this is going to be JUST peachy keen. The next year is going to be full of great articles.

Edit - Y'know, lawsuits don't prevent piracy. They punish for it. I doubt the guy is going to break his tried and 'true' methodology here.

UncleSporky

I picture guys like that shaking their fists and yelling B-movie threats whenever a game gets pirated.

"Curse you, you vandals! I'll have your heads on a platter! You will come to fear the name of Kenneth Doroshow!!"

Henroid

UncleSporky wrote: »

I picture guys like that shaking their fists and yelling B-movie threats whenever a game gets pirated.

"Curse you, you vandals! I'll have your heads on a platter! You'll will come to fear the name of Kenneth Doroshow!!"

This is how comic book villains are born.

The_Scarab

UncleSporky wrote: »

I picture guys like that shaking their fists and yelling B-movie threats whenever a game gets pirated.

"Curse you, you vandals! I'll have your heads on a platter! You'll will come to fear the name of Kenneth Doroshow!!"

I pictured it more kneeling over a pile of CDRWs with doom3 etched on in black marker, looking up at the sky in horror and screaming something like out of a swarzenneger movie

"Burned ISO files?



SALAZAR!!!!!!"

UncleSporky

The_Scarab wrote: »

UncleSporky wrote: »

I picture guys like that shaking their fists and yelling B-movie threats whenever a game gets pirated.

"Curse you, you vandals! I'll have your heads on a platter! You'll will come to fear the name of Kenneth Doroshow!!"

I pictured it more kneeling over a pile of CDRWs with doom3 etched on in black marker, looking up at the sky in horror and screaming something like out of a swarzenneger movie

"Burned ISO files?



SALAZAR!!!!!!"

*Mousy guy walks in*

"S-sir? I've just received a confirmed report that...er, well..."

"What? Spit it out, man!"

"W-well, Diablo 3 has...it's been cracked, sir. It's available for download on the internet right now!"

"WHAT?! You, what's your name? I'll tell you what it is, it's YOU'RE FIRED! Stetson, you're in charge now! I want every PC in this office programmed to find that hacker immediately! And when we find him, I'll wring his scrawny neck into next Tuesday!"

Dehumanized

I'm imagining the villain from Inspector Gadget.

ArcSyn

cloudeagle wrote: »

Eh, we might get another Max Payne. For some reason there's a Max Payne movie coming out this fall, starring Mark Walberg of all people.

Then again, the Dungeon Siege movie didn't exactly revive that franchise.

There was a Dungeon Siege movie?


Not looking forward to the inevitable lawsuits against people hosting no-cd patches..... Or the homebrew scene..

slash000

ArcSyn wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

Eh, we might get another Max Payne. For some reason there's a Max Payne movie coming out this fall, starring Mark Walberg of all people.

Then again, the Dungeon Siege movie didn't exactly revive that franchise.

There was a Dungeon Siege movie?


Not looking forward to the inevitable lawsuits against people hosting no-cd patches..... Or the homebrew scene..

Yeah, it's called "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." It starred Jason Statham. The movie apparently had a lot of plot holes.



Also, the Dungeon Siege franchise isn't "revived" necessarily because of lack of interest, but it could be because the dungeon siege developers had been working on, and just released, a new action-RPG called Space Siege:

Unco-ordinated

JCRooks wrote: »

cloudeagle wrote: »

How does this affect the company? Sony's game division seems to be proportionally bigger within the company than Microsoft's but not really big, so it's not that much of a drag assuming everything else goes well. But everything else isn't going well. Profits are down nearly 50% from this time last year ($326.9 million compared to $620 million) since movie revenues are slow and the wireless division is struggling.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/29/news/companies/sony.ap/index.htm

Hmm, I thought the games division was a significant chunk of Sony. Certainly much more so that the games division for MS, at least. The fact that the company overall is still making a profit, albeit not nearly as much as it expected, is good but not entirely healthy. It's definitely much better than being completely in the red though. And seeing how the games division is finally starting to become profitable again, means that things are looking up.

So yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if everyone at a high level who pioneered the PS3 are long gone, but the ones who are working on it now, trying to "right the ship" are trying to be positive.

Yeah. SCE is pretty big nowadays, probably one of the biggest publishers around actually (especially now that Sony Online have been merged into them). That said, it's still probably the smallest division within Sony (out of Sony Corp/Electronics, Sony BMG, Sony Pictures and SCE).

Anyway, Liepzig starts today, anyone think we'll get any good announcements? I'm not expecting much, maybe the PSP-3000 announcement (or maybe they'll leave that for TGS) and some footage of Heavy Rain. From the sounds of things, Sony are the only first party putting any effort into it but even that will probably just be E3-lite...

toxk_02

Looks like Tales of Vesperia is the official hardware moving champion

Kotaku wrote:

Remember when we thought the Xbox 360 was sold out at one Japanese store? That's not all. It's sold out across the whole damn country. Like, sold out sold out. It's so sold out that Microsoft Japan actually put out an official statement about the situation in The Land of the Rising Sun, apologizing for the lack of consoles. Since demand has eclipsed supply, Microsoft's supply has gone totally dry. The company is ramping up production, and the console will not be shipped to stores until next month.

Microsoft wrote:

http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/console_info_20080819.htm

To all customers

We truly thank you for all your patronage in the past.

Currently, the Xbox 360 is sold out, and retailers are unable to restock their supply. This is a result of our own sales targets being exceeded by the actual customer sales. We deeply apologize for this inconvenience to our customers, retailers and business partners.

Here at Microsoft, we are moving forward quickly with console production, and plan to ship the standard Xbox 360 model out this September. Furthermore, we will sequentially be shipping out the Elite and the Arcade models. We ask that you please patiently wait until the console is shipped.

We truly thank you for your patronage hereafter.

Microsoft
Home and Entertainment HQ

RidleySaria

toxk_02 wrote: »

Looks like Tales of Vesperia is the official hardware moving champion

I expect said hardware to be sold back in droves once Vesperia is finished.

Sheep

Yeah, it's called "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." It starred Jason Statham. The movie apparently had a lot of plot holes.

I watched it.

15 minutes of actually good stuff. 30 minutes. Repeat. The movie was ridiculously long too, and Mathew Lillard should never play anything other than a stoner.

I expect said hardware to be sold back in droves once Vesperia is finished.

And then more new ones bought when Infinite Undiscovery comes out. And then more trade ins. And then more new ones when Last Remnant, and then more trade ins. And then even MORE new ones when Star Ocean 4 comes out, and then trade ins.

It makes MS' numbers look good, and isn't a bad temp strategy.

darleysam

So according to my only source of news (apparently), Eurogamer, MS have confirmed that they're doing a limited run of a new controller with a much improved d-pad.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=218894

Microsoft has confirmed our earlier report that it plans to release a new Xbox 360 controller with an improved d-pad on 24th October.

We found the pad and photographed it on Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer stand, and Microsoft confirms the pad is "optimised" for the football series.

"The new limited-edition green wireless controller offers enhancements to d-Pad functionality, which will add to the experience of playing games where the d-Pad is the primary control mechanism," Microsoft told Eurogamer.

"We're always looking to improve products and we made these changes based on feedback from gamers."

However, the new pad is "a limited edition promotional item that is only available in Europe, Asia and Latin America while supplies last", which is likely to upset fans who feel the d-pad needs full-time replacement rather than a one-off patch for PES.

Speaking to Eurogamer at Games Convention, one third-party publisher told us that the pad was also designed to work with Street Fighter IV, so perhaps it will turn up again next year.

Sheep

Limited is the bad word here, though, we're hoping they're referring to specifically the Green controller.

Thankfully, if MS continues to ignore the DPad problem, Capcom is releasing a 360 pad with a fixed D Pad for SFIV.

EDIT

Also, under no circumstances would Kutaragi every be fired. He invented the Playstation. He's got better treatment than Yokoi got, that's for sure.

DigDug2000

Sheep wrote: »

Yeah, it's called "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." It starred Jason Statham. The movie apparently had a lot of plot holes.

I watched it.

15 minutes of actually good stuff. 30 minutes. Repeat. The movie was ridiculously long too, and Mathew Lillard should never play anything other than a stoner.

Heh. Me and my wife accidentally rented that a few months ago. It now tops both of our lists as the worst film we've ever seen. However as my first Uwe Boll movie, it was a perfect introduction into why he's so hated.

darleysam

Sheep wrote: »

Limited is the bad word here, though, we're hoping they're referring to specifically the Green controller.

Thankfully, if MS continues to ignore the DPad problem, Capcom is releasing a 360 pad with a fixed D Pad for SFIV.

EDIT

Also, under no circumstances would Kutaragi every be fired. He invented the Playstation. He's got better treatment than Yokoi got, that's for sure.

Yeah, I'm hoping the 'Limited' is just a technicality and they do actually keep a model of the controller with the improved d-pad.

Sheep

DigDug2000 wrote: »

Sheep wrote: »

Yeah, it's called "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale." It starred Jason Statham. The movie apparently had a lot of plot holes.

I watched it.

15 minutes of actually good stuff. 30 minutes. Repeat. The movie was ridiculously long too, and Mathew Lillard should never play anything other than a stoner.

Heh. Me and my wife accidentally rented that a few months ago. It now tops both of our lists as the worst film we've ever seen. However as my first Uwe Boll movie, it was a perfect introduction into why he's so hated.

Go rent 305.

Seriously. This shit makes Uwe look like god damn Kubrick.

cloudeagle

Hopefully the "limited" just refers to the pad's color, and we'll get the redesign here too.

By the way, I posed this in the other thread but y'all seem to care more:

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/900/900485p1.html

Tecmo announced today through its corporate website that effective September 1, Yoshimi Yasuda will be resigning his post as CEO.

According to the company, Yasuda, citing "personal reasons," requested the resignation at Tecmo's latest board meeting, held today.

He will be replaced by current Tecmo chairman, Yasuharu Kakihara.

Yasuda's departure comes following a rocky few months during which he was named in a lawsuit filed by former Tecmo employee Tomonobu Itagaki. Tecmo's announcement made no mention of that suit.

Um, wow. Looks like some cooler heads realized just how much the company got fucked by Itagaki leaving.

Dehumanized

Hmm, that new 360 controller D-pad still looks like the same floaty thing that's on the current controller. I guess it'd have to be tried out to figure out how much of an improvement it actually is.

darleysam

Incoming news from Sony'z Leipzig conference..

• New PSP with microphone and new screen
• 160gig PS3 unveiled, also wireless keypad
• LittleBigPlanet release date
• PSN Vidzone
• EyePet

Full writeup on the conference here http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=218944

Couscous

darleysam wrote: »

Incoming news from Sony'z Leipzig conference..
160gig PS3 unveiled, also wireless keypad

Full writeup on the conference here http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=218944

WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY RELEASING MORE MODELS!