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dahuman on 10 June 2012
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mrstickball said:
dahuman said:
mrstickball said:


1. Every Wii U I saw / played on at E3 had a Wiimote.  Given production lead times between now and a likely release date of November, its very unlikely that Nintendo can call many audibles to change the manufacturing/packaging process at this time. Heck, look at how long it took Microsoft to address some soldering on the 360 when they started getting the RROD. It took nearly a year of losses before they could fix the problem due to lead time and implementation. SD cards are a much easier fix, but it does take time to produce, manufacture, and bundle anything with a console, even an SD card.

2. Again, if revenues from DLC on the Wii U are small compared to Microsoft/Sony's next systems, then developers and publishers aren't going to focus on the Wii U, because they know the money won't be there. That will be a huge problem for Nintendo.

3. They go hand in hand. I'm trying to present very likely scenarios as to how users acquire content, and the problems that a lack of memory present. Lets say a percentage of users simply download content organically. That is, they simply see its available on the market, and purchase it because they know its available. Call them "Casual" purchasers of content. If they have insufficient space, then its likely they won't go out of their way to purchase an SD card, and they never convert on the content. Even if that percentage is low - say 25%, that will likely mean hundreds of millions of dollars in unrealized revenues for publishers and developers. That's my point. If a developer can make a game on "Console A", sell it for $50 and will make an average of $3 in additional content sales, do you think he'll promote that as much as the same title on "Console B" which sells for $60, and will make an average of $12 in additional content sales?


I'm not seeing this, it's almost like you are saying that publishers make more money selling DLC than actual games, when in reality they act more as additions to their revenue, and if they don't sell as much DLC, they'll loose money and therefore stop supporting Wii U, like WTF planet is that logic from? It'd make sense if you are talking about a system that only has F2P games, not to mention that you don't need to go out and specifically get an external storage since they are everywhere, like literally everywhere, I'm surprised that they are not raining from the sky these days, also would make for good presents.

It comes down to how much money publishers really make on their retail games.

Here's the data:

 

The key point is the 2nd note. That is, about $27 or just under 50% of every dollar spent on a game actually goes towards the cost of making the game. The rest goes to licensing fees, marketing, retailer mark up, and so on.

Comparatively, as I've stated, really good DLC will generate between $10 and $15 of additional purchasing per retail title sold. The difference is that 70% of every dollar spent on DLC goes to the developer and publisher, sans marketing. Marketing is significantly less expensive, because the user has already purchased the retail title, and the marketing simply has to go to in-game marketing, or other venues that are very cheap.

So if you take a major AAA title that sells $10 in DLC, its actually adding about $6.00 to $6.50 in revenues to that publisher after marketing, or about 22-24% on top of gross revenues from the retail title. That is significant in a world where most major developers are seeing razor-thin profit margins. Think like a developer at that point: If you can make an additional 22-24% by pushing the game on another platform, wouldn't you do that? Its a far higher margin than even the $10 "HD" fee that was tacked on by Microsoft and Sony this generation.

If they are making a profit, they won't base their decision on DLC along, that mentality makes obsolutely no sense in the mind of business men. The lower support would come from them taking losses or the inability to release multiplatform titles on a particular platform due to big differences in hardware compatibility. DLC is not the key factor in publisher support, so that's just a really strange argument, it literally has no merit. You are also basing the assumption that people won't buy external storage when it's everywhere, it's the first thing you pass by when you enter Costco! You are not living in the 90s my man.