What do you think the chances are of Killzone 2 making a profit?

[theRepublic]

Munkeh111 said:

Kasz216 said:

theRepublic said:
I think that Munkeh111 is pretty close on this one.

If Killzone 2 sells over 2 million units, then it will be profitable.

I gotta really wonder though.... are that many games really getting canceled before they are made?  And i mean that many that are very far allong and spent a lot of money on resources, since the games getting canceled in the idea stage probably haven't cost that much.

Cause i mean otherwise, if profit targets are so low for one of the most expensive games this gen....

Why are all these companies losing their shirts?

I mean, with a  number like 2 million for a game this expensive.  The 20% of games released make a profit number doesn't jive.

That is precisely why I think there is a massive hole in my arguement. Well with publishers, they only get $20-25, and the actual developer will only get something like $6 I believe (these figures are semi-made up, there was an article in OPM UK a while ago about where your £50 goes, but I can't remember the precise stats).

For those who don't know, I believe these guys are talking about this article.  It says that only 20% of released games are profitable, and that if you include those games that are never released, only 4% of games are profitable.

@Kasz216

Think about if this game was third party.  Then a $60 million dollar game would need to sell somewhere between 2.4 and 3 million copies just to make it to profitablity.  Those kind of sales numbers are much harder to come by.

Games on the 360 and PS3 are expensive.  I've heard around $16 to $20 million dollars being pretty common for some bigger games.  If that is true, a third party game is going to need to sell 0.6 to 1 million copies to just to be profitable.  Not many games make it to 1 million copies sold.