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De85 on 10 November 2009
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loves2splooge said:
  ---snipped----

Thing is, we don't know how much extra it's going to cost them to develop for three platforms at once (PC,360,PS3). We do know that a delayed port is going to be more expensive than porting code over through a simultaneous planned release. Even if a PS3 version sells a lot less, your ROI can STILL increase with a triple plat release IF the cost of porting to the PS3 is cheap enough. I'll illustrate a hypothetical example of what I mean...

Let's say Company A develops Game X for PC (Steam), 360 and PS3.

Let's say it costs them say $10m to develop for PC/360 and $2m extra to develop for PC/360/PS3 (assuming that it's going to be cheap to simultaneously release on the PS3. Say only 20% more cost in this example).

Let's say the PC/360 versions gives them $40m revenue. And the PS3 version gives them $10m revenue (so PC/360 revenue beat PS3 revenues at a 4:1 ratio).

The ROI for PC/360 would be a ratio of 4:1. The ROI for porting the code to PS3 also would be 5:1 (despite the fact that the PS3 version sold a lot less).

In this kind of scenario, triple plat development would be worth your while.

What we do know though is that PC to 360 porting is cheaper than PS3 porting. By porting the PC code to 360, it's easy easy money for Valve. Definitely increases their ROI even after EA takes a huge chunk of the pie. If it didn't increase their ROI to do 360 releases, I'm sure Valve would be happy to stay Steam exclusive after all.

 

Exactly.  We don't, but Valve does.  Obviously they've seen something in their projections regarding PS3 development that they didn't like, and decided not to develop for it.  Your scenario is meaningless because one could just as easily assume numbers that would show the port not to be worth it.  What if those $2M spent on the PS3 version could have been used to enhance the PC/360 version and drive $15M extra in revenue?  That would be an ROI of 5.5:1. 

At then end of the day Valve is still one of the few companies out there still making profits so I trust that they know what they're doing.