RPG said:
Those being suckered into thinking Team ICO make good games are silly.
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You're treading on thin ice. And Shadow of the Colossus came close to two million, selling 750k in the US and over 200k in Japan. It probably sold another 700k in Europe, though we don't have the data. Combine that with the movie tie-in from Reign Over Me, and the title was probably quite profitable.
Sony's first party titles are doing fine. LittleBigPlanet is probably the most profitable title they've made in years, given the fact that the team never consisted of more than 37 people, and given the current (and ongoing) sales of the title. Uncharted, Resistance, Resistance 2, Ratchet & Clank, and others have all also made a profit, if not a rather nice profit. Hell, even Killzone 2 probably didn't need to sell 1.5 million to break even, yet all these titles have broken that number and then some, and thus should be quite profitable. Killzone 2 should end up over 3 million lifetime, and should also be rather profitable.
The titles that Sony has probably lost money on this generation are Lair, Genji, Folkore, F1: Championship Racing, and their NBA series. You claim they will start shutting down or selling off studios, but they have already begun breaking ties with the developers that aren't making them a profit. They have ended their relationship with Factor 5, and they canceled their plans for a sequel to Foklore with Game Republic, and might never work with the studio again outside of PSN titles, thus making another Genji unlikely. They have also lost the F1 license, so we know that series won't continue. The only thing left standing is the NBA series.
And even if some of these studios weren't making a profit, they'd probably just have the studios begin workign on more marketable IPs, rather than outright closing them. For exmple, Sucker Punch's InFamous will most likely outsell every Sly Cooper title they've made. It is also rumored that Sony Liverpool, the guys behind Wipeout and F1, are working on a third person action title.