the only Lair ads I remember weren even Lair ads they were the "Boom do we want it" or whatever that obnoxious song was and it showed multiple games in a short time. Now unless you arent talking about tv ads and something like mag and internet ads then thats different, but as tv goeslair got a porto ofa 30 second clip

Alan Wake, a third person shooter is niche?

Really? I mean, I can sort of understand you saying that because its psychological horror, but last time I checked how well those did, Bioshock, Resident Evil,  Condemned 2(multiplat total) and Fear have done quite well as far as psycho horror goes.

So...Alan Wake is a RELLY bad example. Plus the thing has been hyped to hell, and hype is only rising. I would have used something like Too Human which somehow didnt bankrupt SK.

It would take more than just one flop to take them down. I mean Free Radical's demise was more than just Haze but the loss of the publishing rights to Star Wars: Battlefront 3 and subsequently no one tacking on Timesplitters 4. Factor 5 still hasn't gone down yet but I'm sure someone will pick them up before they go fall completely.

As for Quantic Dream it would take more than just this game flopping. Although I don't see Heavy Rain selling enough to actually make a profit it could still do well enough to minimize losses. This game just has been in development for too long and faded away for it to be a huge success. But I think it'll sell enough to keep QD afloat.

I personally don't think advertising will help this game much at all. Doesn't appeal to enough people to really help its sales. Your mainstream gamer isn't going to buy a game like this. So reviews is really the only thing that could help this to make sure all the core userbase of PS3 is on board. If this gets even average reviews it won't do well.

But think of all the graphics whores out there, there are alot.

And does anyone know roughly how much a next gen game costs to make? like shouldnt a million copies sold = profit or are most like over 20-$50 million budgets