oh wow, i guess i was working on some pretty bad assumptions. it is a company with only 27 people--http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/24102008/399/media-molecule-play-sony.html
the average pay is probably higher than 100,000k though. i'd imagine the founders make over $300,000 each after profit sharing, and the three specialists mentioned in the article should all make well over $100,000 in salary and bonuses--i'd put it to over $150,000. it appears to be a pretty selected group of engineers and employees, higher quality than your typical studio. so after including equiqment and office space and health benefits and taxes and the likes, i'd say about $150,000 in expenses per employee. probably higher, though.
no idea what the profit sharing between sony and media molecule, however. i'd imagine that sony doled out between $10-20 million, and the sharing of revenue is probably 70-30 between sony and media molecule? there's no way we'd know.
given that LBP is expected by sony to be a success, i'd still put the subsidized cost at around 1 million units. i'd revise downward my estimate of 1.75 million units of "in-vacuum" success of LBP though, to 900,000 units. so i'd estimate it be a success when it hits 1.9 million of units sold, which LBP should have no problem hitting.
the Wii is an epidemic.
