Pachter's explanation on where your 60 dollars goes

[kitler53]

Torillian said:

kitler53 said:
277,778 full price sales for every 10 million in investment to break even. So a big budget game like GT ($60M) would need 1.67M sales to break even.

wii games would need a few more (per 10 million in investment) since full price wii games are only $50. probably like 300-320k.

I assume that Wii games have the same percentages for where the money goes, and therefore each is just 5/6 of what it is for 60 dollar games.

As for the break even point, this is true but you have to remember that if the publisher does not make a penny off of their investment then they are unlikely to think of it as a success and the developer may have a tough time getting funding in the future.  What I'm unsure of is how much money a publisher needs to make before they're happy but I would have to assume that changes based on the expectations for a particular game.

well if you want to assume a straight 5/6 conversion then the wii would need 333,333k per 10 million investment.

...and very true that a publisher won't be happy if they don't get any returns.  but still, these back of the envelope estimates of how much a game needs to sell is interesting...at least to me.