$37 average per Wii game is the likely probable cause of a lot of the third party issues surrounding the platform.
$37 becomes $29.60 once you take out the retailer cut. Though I believe the retailer cut would be larger for titles which linger on the shelves like Wii games tend to, front loaded games tend to have a lower margin for retailers.
$29.60 becomes $23-24.60 once you take out Nintendos cut.
$23-24.60 becomes $20-21.60 once you take out cost of manufacturing.
$20-21.60 becomes $19-20.60 once the distributor takes his cut.
It doesn't really stop there either. You have to consider any licence costs for any familiar characters. You have to consider marketing, development and 'market development' costs to keep your game on the shelf to actually sell and to muscle aside those other titles for top billing. Furthermore its more expensive to keep a game on the market which is selling slowly on a week by week basis, legs are no substitute for frontloaded releases but better than nothing.
Do you know what its like to live on the far side of Uranus?
