Square Enix detail where their losses are coming from

[superchunk]

Torillian said:

superchunk said:

Torillian said:

superchunk said:

Torillian said:
using 80-90% of the expected sales to budget the game seems way too risky in my mind, I wonder how this matches up with other companies' models.

That's exactly what I thought while reading. I wouldn't bet on more than 50% ever.

Maybe focusing on a smaller budget and using cross engine to put on all platforms would have been smarter.

I don't think platform matters in the slightest, just that you should budget more conservatively to keep in mind how unpredictable these things can be.  I think 50% seems about right.  

Using all platforms matter as you greatly increase your potential userbase. So if a device has a decent or will have a decent userbase... there is no reason to ignore it. Spend the money on your engine once and it will benefit all later games as well.

But if they do all that and use their 80-90% model they're still fucked.  You don't need to be on every platform to succeed, you just need to know how much you're likely to sell and budget conservatively with the idea that you could be wrong.  

True. I did say "and" in my first post. You can't budget to that many sales in the first place. But I also think that you need to focus on all viable platforms considering games mentioned were also not on Nintendo consoles.