Squilliam said:
1. I haven't seen anything of the sort and it depends on local advertising laws. Its easier to develop one advertising campaign worldwide and going by what I remember often games have different advertising between Wii and HD versions. 2. Development costs are 1! cost involved in releasing a game. You still have marketing, distribution and console owners fees to take into consideration as well and many of this fees severely restrict the margin per disc if the price per disc is lower. 3. What you call a hit in terms of revenue is different to what a current publisher would call a hit. Selling 500k is insufficient in this day and age. This is especially true if that 500k was sold at an average sale price of $35 over a period of 6 months. As for legacy revenue im talking about cut priced software, bargain bins, compilations and remakes and on the PC this is an especially important source of revenue especially again with regards to Steam.
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1. Well I don't know how the whole thing works, so I'll leave it at that.
2. I still have to find the article, but it admitted that $20 for Wii (and likely past consoles) went directly to the game and $30 for PS3 and 360. That means distribution and console owner fees are already taken into account. So by that number, it's basically marketing and development costs. That same article also stated that typical HD game costs are about $20 million, while high Wii game costs are in the $15 million range (assuming any Wii game has topped Mario Galaxy's $16 million), with The Conduit likely not even near costing $10 million (especially with reduced prices later on) considering that would be what 500K would earn directly for the game. That means marketing would have to be pretty high to make a poor margin compared to the HD games, and most developers don't spend more than a pittance for Wii game marketing, even the "casual" games.
3. Sega is fully publishing the sequel, and promised to market even more. So they clearly think that was sufficient. Plus your "this day and age" comment is false. It should be "insufficient with the budget and marketing of an HD game". Applying those standards to Wii games is the same BS spin developers have been using to justify not supporting the system, despite what the hard facts say.
A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.
Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs