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Forums - Sony Discussion - How Many Copies Did The Last of Us Have To Sell To Become Profitable?

 

How many copies to make the game profitable?

Less than 1m 26 6.03%
 
1m 51 11.83%
 
1.5m 64 14.85%
 
2m 81 18.79%
 
2.5m 33 7.66%
 
3m 31 7.19%
 
3.5m 19 4.41%
 
4m 34 7.89%
 
See results 92 21.35%
 
Total:431
killerzX on 25 August 2013
KingdomHeartsFan said:

So this is kinda something that crosses my mind with a lot of low budget JRPGs, I always wonder how many units they have to sell, but with a game like the Last of Us which has huge production values, I honestly have no idea how many they would have to sell.  If I had to guess I'd say 2.5m.  Currently the game is at 3.01m on vgchartz and I'm sure that number would be much higher with digital sales.  So how many copies do you think they had to sell to make the game profitable?


naughty dog is known to make very high production value games for a reletively low budget. each uncharted game cost them $20 million to make.

so they are very good at keeping costs low, and with TLOU being made by the 2nd team, and under the radar for most of its production. it to probably cost at max $20 million. with a decent chance of it costing less.

anyway, so i think the probably needed around 1 million sales. i mean 1 million sales times $30-$40 bucks (i know games sell for $60, im accounting for other fees and stuff) is $30-$40 million. and since ND is a first party studio, they dont pay sony any fees.



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DamnTastic on 25 August 2013

not that much as 3rd parties of the same level probably.
atleast if sony counts the console loyalty fee.
And this is even more digital if you count out the retailer.

So I'd say this game is already profitable.



DamnTastic on 25 August 2013
killerzX said:

so they are very good at keeping costs low, and with TLOU being made by the 2nd team, and under the radar for most of its production. it to probably cost at max $20 million. with a decent chance of it costing less.

Wasn't TLoU made by the first team?



crissindahouse on 25 August 2013

well, the marketing campaign was huge here in germany. saw advertisement plenty of times at prime time and that for weeks. if it was the same in other countries then probably more than most other sony games. i would say it is already profitable but needed minimum 2m.

2m would be probably ~60m bucks in the bags of sony and i don't think it was cheaper than that with marketing.



Areym on 25 August 2013

My guesses are around 2 million copies at full retail price. With 3mil+ sold, and the success of Uncharted 2 and 3, I'm pretty sure ND are close to doing a Scrooge McDuck money pool dive.



"Trick shot? The trick is NOT to get shot." - Lucian

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chapset on 25 August 2013

it's a ps3 game so it's cheaper than a next gen game would cost since games on the wii u cost only 1mill and need 50-80k to be profitable I would say it needed 20k



Bet reminder: I bet with Tboned51 that Splatoon won't reach the 1 million shipped mark by the end of 2015. I win if he loses and I lose if I lost.

riderz13371 on 25 August 2013

I will say 1M copies. So they basically made a profit the first week of release.



riderz13371 on 25 August 2013
iceboy151 said:
2.5M-3M at full retail price.

You think the games budget was $180M? That's GTA V numbers right there lol.



Barozi on 25 August 2013

It's surely profitable by now.

Uncharted series was rather cheap to make. Maybe ~$30m for TLOU and the same amount of money for marketing, which would mean 1.75m sold copies at full price to break even (since it's a Sony game).



DucksUnlimited on 25 August 2013
riderz13371 said:
iceboy151 said:
2.5M-3M at full retail price.

You think the games budget was $180M? That's GTA V numbers right there lol.

You do realize they don't get the full $60 for each copy, right?