Call of Duty for Vita? Update: N-Space not developing Black Ops 2 for handhelds!

[Chark]

RolStoppable said:

Chark said:

Wow, take a step back and think about that. The cost to distribute a digital game is almost null. Retailers and wholesalers probably get $10 each for a $50 game sale. That's $30 left for Activision, minus cost to produce the case which could be like $5 or something. That 10% online discount is mearly an incentive, they still make more profit off that then a retail sale. Say $20 or $30 from Sony per sale would equate to retail sale level profit, so that alone would be a huge incentive. This not including the advertisement boom. I mean really, have you ever considered the loss of sales when viewing those console bundles we see all the time. Sony's latest PS3 holiday bundle was $50 off with LBP2 and Ratchet & clank for free. If this idea is crazy but that isnt...i dont know what to say.

We are talking about Activision here, the company that charges $15 for map packs and offers a paid Elite service for one of their games. If normally a digital VIta copy of CoD would go for $45 and $10 of that go to Sony (royalties plus hosting the game for download on their servers), then Activision would be left with $35. However, you propose that they would be satisfied with $20 or $30 in a scenario where the game is given away for free. But it's Activision who is in the driver's seat here, because Sony needs them more than they need Sony.

Bundling two old first party games isn't really comparable to giving a brandnew third party game away for free. The latter is more costly, because third parties want to be fully compensated.

What? I said $10 for retailers, $10 for wholesallers. That's $30 left for Activision. I don't know exact costs per copy but they sure aren't getting the full $50. They want to, that's why digital sales are where they want to go. Those two games weren't that old and that wasn't the point, they are willing to create incentives at pretty significant cost off price tag. So what if Activision provides a $50 game for free for one month, a good portion of those sales will be from consumers who buy a Vita, which allows Sony to compensate Activision for each free game given away because of a decent trade off. At the same time some people will probably sign up for Elite just to get that, that's extra revenue for content that is already provided, and those customers might continue with the service. It's just good business for everyone.

Best this is that this is above and beyond a smarter financial move than a price cut, which is a horrible decision and would destroy Sony's profits. By holding off until a reasonable time to drop the price gives them better leverage to drop the price at the right time. If they were to do it this year it would be forever before they could do it again leaving them in the same position later.