Har har. Technically, the branding is supposed to be "Xbox LIVE". And yes, anything else is technically incorrect. Gotta love branding guidelines.
Codenames are something else entirely. I'm not allowed to disclose what they are, but resourceful people can probably find them. (Heck, for the NXE release, a bunch of people had T-shirts with the codename for that release plastered on it)
Anyway, on to business news (and a related note!), here's an interesting tidbit:
DLC can expand a game in many ways. Not only can it expand the experience offered by a title, but it can also expand your wallet, take out your money, and place it in the hands of publishers and developers. And, by 2010, EEDAR predicts that "the average AAA title should be able to earn an additional 10% in revenue by releasing additional content through digital distribution."
It's not a hard pill to swallow; DLC packs such as The Lost and Damned and Call of Duty: World at War's Map Pack 1 have been selling like virtual hotcakes, and Sony has been milking LittleBigPlanet in all the appropriate ways. Also, let's not forget about Criterion Games, the company that has been adding value consistently to its Burnout Paradise game. Of course, gamers have been complaining about paid DLC just as consistently.
This is, of course, just a prediction by EEDAR. Only the publishers/developers know how close this 10% mark is. As consumers, does that feel right though? Do you spend about 10% more on DLC like the Lost and Damned? Rock Band tracks?
What in the hell? PS3 for April just jumped 6% at TSE, and I'm down 200k points because of it.
I'm seeing this through. No way we're above 255k in a 4 week month with virtually no games released and no price drop.
Are you talking about the March results coming on Thursday? Because that's a 5-week period (March 1 - April 4). An unchanged weekly rate from Feb would be 345k for March. 255k for the period would be a 26% decline in the weekly rate from Feb to Mar (69k to 51k), which is kinda steep.
Heh, I was wondering when the "Hey, remember when the Wii and Xbox 360 were the silliest fucking names ever?" conversation would pop up. I'd don't mind the 360 anymore, but I think the Revolution would have been a better name for the Wii; but that's just my two cents.
I know this conversation is a few hours old, but in hindsight I can't believe how nerdy "Revolution" sounds. The idea of naming a console that just screams "18-25 year old focus group study"
DeaconKnowledge on
My NEW Wii code - 5227 1968 3982 4139. My Wii needs your Miis! Please give generously!
Animal Crossing - 3566 5318 4585/2492 7891 0383 Deacon/Akisha in Crayon
Har har. Technically, the branding is supposed to be "Xbox LIVE". And yes, anything else is technically incorrect. Gotta love branding guidelines.
Codenames are something else entirely. I'm not allowed to disclose what they are, but resourceful people can probably find them. (Heck, for the NXE release, a bunch of people had T-shirts with the codename for that release plastered on it)
Anyway, on to business news (and a related note!), here's an interesting tidbit:
DLC can expand a game in many ways. Not only can it expand the experience offered by a title, but it can also expand your wallet, take out your money, and place it in the hands of publishers and developers. And, by 2010, EEDAR predicts that "the average AAA title should be able to earn an additional 10% in revenue by releasing additional content through digital distribution."
It's not a hard pill to swallow; DLC packs such as The Lost and Damned and Call of Duty: World at War's Map Pack 1 have been selling like virtual hotcakes, and Sony has been milking LittleBigPlanet in all the appropriate ways. Also, let's not forget about Criterion Games, the company that has been adding value consistently to its Burnout Paradise game. Of course, gamers have been complaining about paid DLC just as consistently.
This is, of course, just a prediction by EEDAR. Only the publishers/developers know how close this 10% mark is. As consumers, does that feel right though? Do you spend about 10% more on DLC like the Lost and Damned? Rock Band tracks?
Buying less. I begrudingly bought the Halo tracks because I know for a fact that Microsoft has been fucking Bungie over on that front, but it's not like Bungie can directly sell them themselves.
Rock Band purchases have died down for me, mostly because they really need to have some better usage of said songs.
Heh, I was wondering when the "Hey, remember when the Wii and Xbox 360 were the silliest fucking names ever?" conversation would pop up. I'd don't mind the 360 anymore, but I think the Revolution would have been a better name for the Wii; but that's just my two cents.
I know this conversation is a few hours old, but in hindsight I can't believe how nerdy "Revolution" sounds. The idea of naming a console that just screams "18-25 year old focus group study"
I agree. I also agree that "Revolution" is extremely presumptuous. And also a little pretentious at that.
"Wii" serves all of the goals that Nintendo has sought with the system.
Sony reps have confirmed that there are no plans for a UMD release for Patapon 2 when the PSP game ships in North America next month, calling the move "a one time test case."
In a statement from Patrick Seybold, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at SCEA, the company's plans to go download-only on the Patapon sequel are confirmed, noting that the PlayStation Portable game will be available at retail and via the PlayStation Store.
"We're considering a digital only format for the Patapon 2 release as a one time test case as we continue to explore consumer preferences for digital content," reads the statement. "The downloadable game will be available on May 5th at both retail and via the PlayStation Store. We remain focused on providing superior games and entertainment experiences in both the UMD and digital formats and are working closely with our partners to deliver the best PSP line up in our history."
I wonder how much of a test case it actually is. This could be big.
Isn't Patapon kind of a niche game to use to test the validity of digital distribution?
Whenever someone uses a niche-type game like that to "test" anything, I always think they're not being genuine.
Take a game that normally doesn't sell a lot and use it as a basis to decide whether or not something else will sell a lot.
They never do it with something that usually sells a lot so they can compare. And then when the "test" game that was never going to sell a lot goes on to... SURPRISE... not sell a lot, the test is a failure.
The game has sold 229,000 copies in North America by January 2009
Source is Gamasutra. The game was released in Feb. 2008. I imagine those are quite good sales for the development cost. A sequel is probably useful because you already have an idea of how well it would sell without the weird stuff you are doing. I wouldn't be surprised if this test is pretty much rigged though.
229k is pretty damn good for almost anything that costs less than $10 million to develop.
People get far too hung up on the million unit figure; most games don't sell that much and don't need to, due to their development budgets. Most games produced these days probably have an operating budget of around $5 to 10 million; even on the outside, a $10 million dollar game requires ~166,000 copies sold at $60 a head to break even.
I do kind of wish people wouldn't just look at raw sales numbers when talking about a game's success. Valkyria Chronicles, for example, hasn't sold huge volume, but for the budget it was probably developed on? JP + US sales have doubtlessly made back the dev budget in spades.
Eh, even though "rules of thumb" aren't very useful, I'd say that a better rule of thumb for Wii games' typical budgets is 8-10 million dollars, and 360/PS3 games is 15-20 million dollars to develop and publish. Many devs/pubs have had "success" with Wii games at 250-300k, and for the HD systems 500k-600k.
The 166k you mention is only good for games with substantially smaller budgets. That's why breaking 100k for the NA region is damn good for portable systems. 229k is very, very good for a portable game sales wise. Might not be for something with a far larger budget, though, like Liberty City Stories, or a S-E RPG, but of course these two publishers/devs have had no problem meeting their sales needs.
As compared to the PSP, the NDS requires even smaller budgets than anything out there, just about, except the obvious digital distro games. Tiny budgets necessitating small sales to make money. It's why the NDS is such a great platform for niche devs and niche genres, and for third parties in general. It's a small risk, there's usually favorable rewards, and if you're lucky like Capcom or Atlus or whoever, you might get lucky and hit it big with something.
229k is pretty damn good for almost anything that costs less than $10 million to develop.
People get far too hung up on the million unit figure; most games don't sell that much and don't need to, due to their development budgets. Most games produced these days probably have an operating budget of around $5 to 10 million; even on the outside, a $10 million dollar game requires ~166,000 copies sold at $60 a head to break even.
I do kind of wish people wouldn't just look at raw sales numbers when talking about a game's success. Valkyria Chronicles, for example, hasn't sold huge volume, but for the budget it was probably developed on? JP + US sales have doubtlessly made back the dev budget in spades.
I don't know what VC's budget was but if it made a profit then it's pretty hard to understand how the industry as a whole is losing money faster than we keep track.
And if an average game needed less than 200k units sold to make a profit then what's your explanation for all (well not ubisoft or WoW) the major publishers losing money? Hookers and blow? Obviously your calculation is flat out wrong since the publisher doesn't get all of those $60.
No, I think I'll stick with my current motto: "Two million is the new 500k".
lowlylowlycook on
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
The 166k number Drake cites is highly flawed because it's assuming that $60 of every game sold goes straight to the publisher, and that 166k x $60 = $10M for his assumed budget. When in fact most HD games cost $15-$20M (or sometimes even more) to publish, and not anywhere near the full $60 of retail revenue goes to the publisher.
166k would be awesome for an NDS games, it would be great for a PSP or PS2 game, it would be bad for a Wii game, and it would be very horrible sales for an HD game.
Isn't Patapon kind of a niche game to use to test the validity of digital distribution?
Whenever someone uses a niche-type game like that to "test" anything, I always think they're not being genuine.
Take a game that normally doesn't sell a lot and use it as a basis to decide whether or not something else will sell a lot.
They never do it with something that usually sells a lot so they can compare. And then when the "test" game that was never going to sell a lot goes on to... SURPRISE... not sell a lot, the test is a failure.
They've set it up perfectly so that they can get exactly the results they want to get.
As you said, Patapon 2 is a niche title, so if they want this to fail they can easily say "nope, nobody bought it."
However, since the game has already been released in standard fashion in both Europe and Japan, those regions can serve as control groups by which to judge American sales. In that sense, choosing a niche title like Patapon is going to make it look better, since the target demographic is niche gamers who are presumably more comfortable with taking their PSPs online and the concept of digital distribution in general. I'd expect that Patapon 2 will do better than a more 'mainstream' title would when you compare the digital distribution-only region against regions with standard distribution, a fact that Sony can theoretically use to push the "it's working!" angle if they so choose.
I simplified a few things, admittedly, but at the same time I think you guys are overestimating the budgets some places have to even draw on. Sure, EA and Ubisoft and the like can throw $20 million at a game without much worry, but a smaller company like, say, NISA or Atlus can't throw that much money at a project without a whole lot of risk.
The simple reality, though, is that the vast majority of video game software released does not sell over a million copies. There's a lot of games, both good and terrible, that are made to, and sell, 500,000 copies or less. They can't all be blockbusters, and they aren't budgeted like that. So why compare each game equally, when not all of them are intended to sell as much as each other? That's the point I was trying to make at the start. A game's success should be considered relative to its budget.
I DON'T CARE who wins the stupid fucking 'war'. I really, really don't. Do I want Sony to do well? Yep! I want to have enough hardware sold that we can easily break even on my company's game. Sure do- yep, yep! No big conspiracy there.
I don't work for Sony and while Eat Sleep Play would and could soldier on if Sony simply vanished form the face of the Earth, our immediate (and beyond possibly) fortunes are tied to the company and we want to see them do well for that reason (as well as for the reason that we have lots of friends who work there). Would it be cool if they were 'winning'? Sure! Even if they stay in 3rd place till the end, do they have a great system with great games and many more great games coming and a biz model that is beginning to pay off? Sure! So does it really matter to me? Not really. No big conspiracy there either.
As for the recession thing- look, I showed up, answered the questions to the best of my ability. Geoff is more than welcome not to invite me back if he feels I did not respect his topics. But the reality is, my day to day is that much different with or without a recession. We're still making games, still pushing ahead to try to entertain the most folks we can. Sorry I could not make it more dramatic for you but the reality is, we have not noticed THAT much of a difference so there's not much for me to talk about other than what I said (i.e. Sony gets hurt the most- I think- having the most expensive box and it'd be great if they dropped the price).
David
ps. FUCK YOU PACH...you prick!!!! Nice meeting you finally! It was fun! Wait till we get on next week's USED GAME rant
pps. And I was not waiting to get annoyed or wanting to be contrary...I was a)hung over and b) SICK of hearing about the stupid ass console wars and who is gonna win and who is NOT gonna win...I mean, I love controversial topics but shit, isn't this one played out? Until something changes, right now we know where the consoles stand. What is the point?
Bolded the amusing parts. I don't doubt the fact that the recession hasn't directly affected his company. And for the millionth time I don't really disagree that winning the console isn't the most important thing but I think he's using that as a distraction away from the real disconnect between the price of making a AAA PS3 game and the install base that you could sell to.
lowlylowlycook on
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I simplified a few things, admittedly, but at the same time I think you guys are overestimating the budgets some places have to even draw on. Sure, EA and Ubisoft and the like can throw $20 million at a game without much worry, but a smaller company like, say, NISA or Atlus can't throw that much money at a project without a whole lot of risk.
That's why NISA and Atlus don't make hardly any HD games (they've made a few though). And true they don't need $15M budgets to do so; but most devs and pubs seem to think it necessary to make the kind of game they think will sell. Most publishers aren't shooting for the same model as Atlus or SNK or Xseed.
The simple reality, though, is that the vast majority of video game software released does not sell over a million copies.
That's right. Most games don't need to sell that much to profit.
Unfortunately most games don't hit the 250k, 300k, 500k, or 600k they need to make money, either. Most games lose money. They don't need to fail to hit a million sales to lose money.
Just some examples that I recall, Killzone 2 cost over $21M to develop, Lost Planet cost over $40M, GTA IV cost around $100M. Ubisoft put its HD games at an average of $22M i think it was. Halo 3 cost ~$30M just to develop.
There's a lot of games, both good and terrible, that are made to, and sell, 500,000 copies or less.
Most games never get anywhere near 500k. Not on the HD systems or the Wii, and at this point, not even the PS2 anymore either.
They can't all be blockbusters, and they aren't budgeted like that.
They aren't budgeted to do 1M+ sales, but they are budgeted in the $15-$20M range for HD games. And $8-10M for Wii games.
But that doesn't mean that they get anywhere near the required sales to make money.
So why compare each game equally, when not all of them are intended to sell as much as each other? That's the point I was trying to make at the start. A game's success should be considered relative to its budget.
Yes, we all agree. But you were suggesting an absurdly low number of sales for what might be considered a 'break even' point, and then suggesting that all retail revenue goes back to the publisher.. when none of that llogic makes any sense.
Do all games need to sell 1m+ to profit? No. But they regularly have budgets of upwards of $8-$10M for Wii games, and it's extremely common for HD games to have budgets of $15-$25 million dollars. Yes, this is common common common. Especially when you factor in the marketing costs. Super common.
Niche devs shy away from the HD systems. Yes, they can if they want try and reign in their budget, but there are unavoidable costs associated with the complicated cell/multicore, the expensive devkits, the small install bases, and the need to port to both HD platforms to acquire a decent install base, for their niche niche games that are only going to get very minimal sales to recoup these costs.
Thus niche devs stick to the Portables, where initial cost of entry is small, budgets and team sizes can be super small, and thus necessary sales to recoup the costs don't have to be huge. Low risk, decent reward, potentially very high reward with a hit.
And Unco, you know as well as I do why the PSP hardware is selling well in the west while the software sales are crap. ...or have you been moneyhatted too? My god, it's Attack of the Moneyhatted People! Run!
Yeah, they're crap because there's barely any new games coming out and a lot of people seem to prefer using it as a music/movie player. Piracy isn't as much of a problem as it used to be, since the PSP-3000 hasn't been hacked yet (as far as I know anyway).
Now that my response has lured you into a false sense of security, would you like a hat of money?
While we and everyone are talking about handheld sales, I'll just repost the NPD LTD leak that Titmouse posted a few months back:
PSP
Crisis Core: FF7 - 708k
Patapon - 229k
God of War: Chains of Olympus - 640k
Star Ocean: First Departure - 69k
Yggdra Union - 12k
DS
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney - 71k
Chrono Trigger - 210k
Contra 4 - 115k
Dragon Quest 4 - 76k
Final Fantasy 4 - 275k
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - 233k
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney - 117k
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All - 110k
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 92k
Professor Layton & the Curious Village - 340k
Trauma Center: Under the Knife - 225k
Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 - 61k
Anyway, while I don't think the Wii is a great name, it's still a FAR better name than 'Revolution'. Wii is short and catchy, Revolution isn't.
It is pointlessly bad for the environment, it combines the downsides of digital distribution and retail games, with seemingly little benefit to the consumer, it assumes that the consumer is going to have a decent sized memory card (which they have had to pay Sony for in the first place).
But seriously, it would be nice if Sony got to the point where they were releasing most PS3/PSP games online right out of the gate. If I'm able to download GOW3 I'd be ecstatic.
But seriously, it would be nice if Sony got to the point where they were releasing most PS3/PSP games online right out of the gate. If I'm able to download GOW3 I'd be ecstatic.
I think better still have these online releases earlier than the retail releases if there is a retail release, show the market the advantages of digital downloads ( get it first, faster loading, better battery life for the PSP, always on you without carrying around frail UMD's etc) If Sony could have every future PSP release online 1- 2 weeks before the retail copy, I would be downloading without fail.
But seriously, it would be nice if Sony got to the point where they were releasing most PS3/PSP games online right out of the gate. If I'm able to download GOW3 I'd be ecstatic.
I think it'd be great, too, but I wonder how feasible it would be to start downloading full PS3 retail releasing, since the capacity of a BluRay disc is so large (thus some games are huge), I can imagine that some big retail releases would fill up the HDD really, really fast if you could download them entirely.
Patapon is a fun game, but it kind of fails as a portable game because it requires you to listen to the sound (you either need it loud or need headphones) and requires constant concentration. Its the reason I didn't buy the first patapon and the reason I won't buy the second.
I’ll tell you what happens in Demon’s Souls when you die. You come back as a ghost with your health capped at half. And when you keep on dying, the alignment of the world turns black and the enemies get harder. That’s right, when you fail in this game, it gets harder. Why? Because fuck you is why.
But seriously, it would be nice if Sony got to the point where they were releasing most PS3/PSP games online right out of the gate. If I'm able to download GOW3 I'd be ecstatic.
I think better still have these online releases earlier than the retail releases if there is a retail release, show the market the advantages of digital downloads ( get it first, faster loading, better battery life for the PSP, always on you without carrying around frail UMD's etc) If Sony could have every future PSP release online 1- 2 weeks before the retail copy, I would be downloading without fail.
I'd like what alot of DVDs are doing now: Disc with a Digital Copy.
There's something I like about having a box on my shelf and an actual physical disc, but if I had the option to download it onto the memory card and play it from there that'd be great, but only as long as it's an option in addition to the actual disc.
More importantly, why can't the PSP pull a 360 and allow copying to the Memory Stick, but still require the game to be in the drive to play. That would help battery life immensely.
it assumes that the consumer is going to have a decent sized memory card (which they have had to pay Sony for in the first place).
PSPs can use any type of Pro Duo Memory Stick, not just Sony ones. A lot of people buy them from SanDisk.
There's pirate ones too, which some people seem to think are perfectly fine (though I've had a dodgy experience with one and wouldn't recommend them). SanDisk's are generally the best, both cheap and reliable.
greeble: For shame sir, for shame. Patapon's one of the best games on the PSP.
maximumzero: What, you mean that you'd pay an extra $10 or so and they'd send you a UMD copy? That wouldn't be a bad idea.
I'm kinda hoping that they'll start doing the opposite as well, let you register UMD PSP games and then download digital copies of the same games. Of course that'd require every UMD game to be on the PSN, which probably won't happen...
Patapon is a fun game, but it kind of fails as a portable game because it requires you to listen to the sound (you either need it loud or need headphones) and requires constant concentration. Its the reason I didn't buy the first patapon and the reason I won't buy the second.
This is kind of the rub. I liked Patapon enough, but I ended up shelving it due to this (well, that and a long midgame grind where I had to repeat early levels to get materials for better soldiers). I'll come back to it, but it is a peculiar case where it's immensely difficult to pause mid-game and not fuck everything up. Even as a DD title it doesn't really benefit from the "play at any time on a whim" factor because you need to devote uninterrupted blocks of time to play it. Even though levels can be only 4-5 minutes long, it's tough to play when you're on a bus or subway.
Posts
Codenames include:
XBOX live
xbox live
xbox LIVE
XboX LivE
Xbox We'reMicrotransactingTheCustomerToThePoorHouse
Codenames are something else entirely. I'm not allowed to disclose what they are, but resourceful people can probably find them. (Heck, for the NXE release, a bunch of people had T-shirts with the codename for that release plastered on it)
Anyway, on to business news (and a related note!), here's an interesting tidbit:
EEDAR: DLC to drive AAA title revenue up 10 percent by 2010
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/13/eedar-dlc-to-drive-aaa-title-revenue-up-10-percent-by-2010/
This is, of course, just a prediction by EEDAR. Only the publishers/developers know how close this 10% mark is. As consumers, does that feel right though? Do you spend about 10% more on DLC like the Lost and Damned? Rock Band tracks?
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I know this conversation is a few hours old, but in hindsight I can't believe how nerdy "Revolution" sounds. The idea of naming a console that just screams "18-25 year old focus group study"
Animal Crossing - 3566 5318 4585/2492 7891 0383 Deacon/Akisha in Crayon
Xbox LIVE itself.
Buying less. I begrudingly bought the Halo tracks because I know for a fact that Microsoft has been fucking Bungie over on that front, but it's not like Bungie can directly sell them themselves.
Rock Band purchases have died down for me, mostly because they really need to have some better usage of said songs.
I agree. I also agree that "Revolution" is extremely presumptuous. And also a little pretentious at that.
"Wii" serves all of the goals that Nintendo has sought with the system.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
It should work like The Lost and Damned expansion except stand alone.
Whenever someone uses a niche-type game like that to "test" anything, I always think they're not being genuine.
Take a game that normally doesn't sell a lot and use it as a basis to decide whether or not something else will sell a lot.
They never do it with something that usually sells a lot so they can compare. And then when the "test" game that was never going to sell a lot goes on to... SURPRISE... not sell a lot, the test is a failure.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
People get far too hung up on the million unit figure; most games don't sell that much and don't need to, due to their development budgets. Most games produced these days probably have an operating budget of around $5 to 10 million; even on the outside, a $10 million dollar game requires ~166,000 copies sold at $60 a head to break even.
I do kind of wish people wouldn't just look at raw sales numbers when talking about a game's success. Valkyria Chronicles, for example, hasn't sold huge volume, but for the budget it was probably developed on? JP + US sales have doubtlessly made back the dev budget in spades.
The 166k you mention is only good for games with substantially smaller budgets. That's why breaking 100k for the NA region is damn good for portable systems. 229k is very, very good for a portable game sales wise. Might not be for something with a far larger budget, though, like Liberty City Stories, or a S-E RPG, but of course these two publishers/devs have had no problem meeting their sales needs.
As compared to the PSP, the NDS requires even smaller budgets than anything out there, just about, except the obvious digital distro games. Tiny budgets necessitating small sales to make money. It's why the NDS is such a great platform for niche devs and niche genres, and for third parties in general. It's a small risk, there's usually favorable rewards, and if you're lucky like Capcom or Atlus or whoever, you might get lucky and hit it big with something.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I don't know what VC's budget was but if it made a profit then it's pretty hard to understand how the industry as a whole is losing money faster than we keep track.
And if an average game needed less than 200k units sold to make a profit then what's your explanation for all (well not ubisoft or WoW) the major publishers losing money? Hookers and blow? Obviously your calculation is flat out wrong since the publisher doesn't get all of those $60.
No, I think I'll stick with my current motto: "Two million is the new 500k".
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
166k would be awesome for an NDS games, it would be great for a PSP or PS2 game, it would be bad for a Wii game, and it would be very horrible sales for an HD game.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
They've set it up perfectly so that they can get exactly the results they want to get.
As you said, Patapon 2 is a niche title, so if they want this to fail they can easily say "nope, nobody bought it."
However, since the game has already been released in standard fashion in both Europe and Japan, those regions can serve as control groups by which to judge American sales. In that sense, choosing a niche title like Patapon is going to make it look better, since the target demographic is niche gamers who are presumably more comfortable with taking their PSPs online and the concept of digital distribution in general. I'd expect that Patapon 2 will do better than a more 'mainstream' title would when you compare the digital distribution-only region against regions with standard distribution, a fact that Sony can theoretically use to push the "it's working!" angle if they so choose.
The simple reality, though, is that the vast majority of video game software released does not sell over a million copies. There's a lot of games, both good and terrible, that are made to, and sell, 500,000 copies or less. They can't all be blockbusters, and they aren't budgeted like that. So why compare each game equally, when not all of them are intended to sell as much as each other? That's the point I was trying to make at the start. A game's success should be considered relative to its budget.
Bolded the amusing parts. I don't doubt the fact that the recession hasn't directly affected his company. And for the millionth time I don't really disagree that winning the console isn't the most important thing but I think he's using that as a distraction away from the real disconnect between the price of making a AAA PS3 game and the install base that you could sell to.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Real men write in Klingon. There, I said it.
That's why NISA and Atlus don't make hardly any HD games (they've made a few though). And true they don't need $15M budgets to do so; but most devs and pubs seem to think it necessary to make the kind of game they think will sell. Most publishers aren't shooting for the same model as Atlus or SNK or Xseed.
That's right. Most games don't need to sell that much to profit.
Unfortunately most games don't hit the 250k, 300k, 500k, or 600k they need to make money, either. Most games lose money. They don't need to fail to hit a million sales to lose money.
Just some examples that I recall, Killzone 2 cost over $21M to develop, Lost Planet cost over $40M, GTA IV cost around $100M. Ubisoft put its HD games at an average of $22M i think it was. Halo 3 cost ~$30M just to develop.
Most games never get anywhere near 500k. Not on the HD systems or the Wii, and at this point, not even the PS2 anymore either.
They aren't budgeted to do 1M+ sales, but they are budgeted in the $15-$20M range for HD games. And $8-10M for Wii games.
But that doesn't mean that they get anywhere near the required sales to make money.
Yes, we all agree. But you were suggesting an absurdly low number of sales for what might be considered a 'break even' point, and then suggesting that all retail revenue goes back to the publisher.. when none of that llogic makes any sense.
Do all games need to sell 1m+ to profit? No. But they regularly have budgets of upwards of $8-$10M for Wii games, and it's extremely common for HD games to have budgets of $15-$25 million dollars. Yes, this is common common common. Especially when you factor in the marketing costs. Super common.
Niche devs shy away from the HD systems. Yes, they can if they want try and reign in their budget, but there are unavoidable costs associated with the complicated cell/multicore, the expensive devkits, the small install bases, and the need to port to both HD platforms to acquire a decent install base, for their niche niche games that are only going to get very minimal sales to recoup these costs.
Thus niche devs stick to the Portables, where initial cost of entry is small, budgets and team sizes can be super small, and thus necessary sales to recoup the costs don't have to be huge. Low risk, decent reward, potentially very high reward with a hit.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
He's got it bad enough, being based in Utah and betting on the wrong horses.
Yeah, they're crap because there's barely any new games coming out and a lot of people seem to prefer using it as a music/movie player. Piracy isn't as much of a problem as it used to be, since the PSP-3000 hasn't been hacked yet (as far as I know anyway).
Now that my response has lured you into a false sense of security, would you like a hat of money?
While we and everyone are talking about handheld sales, I'll just repost the NPD LTD leak that Titmouse posted a few months back:
Crisis Core: FF7 - 708k
Patapon - 229k
God of War: Chains of Olympus - 640k
Star Ocean: First Departure - 69k
Yggdra Union - 12k
DS
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney - 71k
Chrono Trigger - 210k
Contra 4 - 115k
Dragon Quest 4 - 76k
Final Fantasy 4 - 275k
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - 233k
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney - 117k
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All - 110k
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations - 92k
Professor Layton & the Curious Village - 340k
Trauma Center: Under the Knife - 225k
Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 - 61k
Anyway, while I don't think the Wii is a great name, it's still a FAR better name than 'Revolution'. Wii is short and catchy, Revolution isn't.
Xenogears: Fuck you too.
You can blame it on the holes in the o-zone there too.
It is pointlessly bad for the environment, it combines the downsides of digital distribution and retail games, with seemingly little benefit to the consumer, it assumes that the consumer is going to have a decent sized memory card (which they have had to pay Sony for in the first place).
Let the age of digital distribution begin!
....
With Patapon 2.
But seriously, it would be nice if Sony got to the point where they were releasing most PS3/PSP games online right out of the gate. If I'm able to download GOW3 I'd be ecstatic.
I think better still have these online releases earlier than the retail releases if there is a retail release, show the market the advantages of digital downloads ( get it first, faster loading, better battery life for the PSP, always on you without carrying around frail UMD's etc) If Sony could have every future PSP release online 1- 2 weeks before the retail copy, I would be downloading without fail.
"About fifty percent of the human race is middlemen, and they don't take kindly to being eliminated."
I think it'd be great, too, but I wonder how feasible it would be to start downloading full PS3 retail releasing, since the capacity of a BluRay disc is so large (thus some games are huge), I can imagine that some big retail releases would fill up the HDD really, really fast if you could download them entirely.
I love this quote. Where is this from?
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Let me tell you about Demon's Souls....
I'd like what alot of DVDs are doing now: Disc with a Digital Copy.
There's something I like about having a box on my shelf and an actual physical disc, but if I had the option to download it onto the memory card and play it from there that'd be great, but only as long as it's an option in addition to the actual disc.
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
PSPs can use any type of Pro Duo Memory Stick, not just Sony ones. A lot of people buy them from SanDisk.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games
Switch: 6200-8149-0919 / Wii U: maximumzero / 3DS: 0860-3352-3335 / eBay Shop
There's pirate ones too, which some people seem to think are perfectly fine (though I've had a dodgy experience with one and wouldn't recommend them). SanDisk's are generally the best, both cheap and reliable.
greeble: For shame sir, for shame. Patapon's one of the best games on the PSP.
maximumzero: What, you mean that you'd pay an extra $10 or so and they'd send you a UMD copy? That wouldn't be a bad idea.
I'm kinda hoping that they'll start doing the opposite as well, let you register UMD PSP games and then download digital copies of the same games. Of course that'd require every UMD game to be on the PSN, which probably won't happen...
This is kind of the rub. I liked Patapon enough, but I ended up shelving it due to this (well, that and a long midgame grind where I had to repeat early levels to get materials for better soldiers). I'll come back to it, but it is a peculiar case where it's immensely difficult to pause mid-game and not fuck everything up. Even as a DD title it doesn't really benefit from the "play at any time on a whim" factor because you need to devote uninterrupted blocks of time to play it. Even though levels can be only 4-5 minutes long, it's tough to play when you're on a bus or subway.