Sega talks sales: Yakuza 3 broke even, 7th Dragon very good, MadWorld meh

[outlawauron]

BengaBenga said:

outlawauron said:

BengaBenga said:
Don't want to ruin the party, but breaking even is NOT a success at all. It means they could have put the money they spent making Yakuza 3 on the bank and made more money. That's not how companies work.

But it isn't a failure. 

And the game isn't going to suddenly stop selling now.

I don't know if it's a failure. From the sales numbers we can calculate that Yakuza must have costed ~$13 million (assuming $30 per game revenue for the publisher). Investing that kind of money without seeing a return would be a failure in almost any business. But at least it didn't lose money, that's for sure. Maybe that's how the hit-driven game industry works.

But with another 50k sold they could make ~$1.5 million in profit, 10% RoI. It sure is something, but I'm pretty sure Valkyria was a bigger success (RoI wise,). I don't see it costing anywhere near Yakuza levels and it sold decent.

I'm not too sure on how the game margin is in Japan, but you have to consider how games are more expensive there. I think Yakuza 3 is $80 MSRP? Or at least started around there.

However, it's, like most Japanese games, is discounted 20%.