| ListerOfSmeg said: You cant count each copy as going 100% to the developer. It doesn't work that way. I'd say with 3million it is by now but not to the extent some are suggesting. they may only make 20.00 for every copy sold. More if digital so its safe to say its profitable at this point though sales for such a great game on a console with 90 million sold is really kind of low. Game should be at 10 million or more at this point. |
Really? Really? 10m? Given that the active install base is probably much less than the 80m consoles sold, you expect like 1 in 6 gamers to have bought it. I know it is very good and all, but there is no way you can expect GTA or CoD like numbers from something that is simply more hardcore and intimidating
Anyway, Uncharted 1 and 2 had development budgets of $20m. It is fairly safe to assume that the Last of Us had a similar budget. It was basically in development from when they finished Uncharted 2, which would be 3 1/2 years, but presumably the first year or so, it was just pre-production. They also had to hire tons of employees to basically double the size of the studio (Linked In suggests it has "201-500" which doesn't seem right. If I recall correctly, it had about 80 at the start of the gen). So maybe scale that to $25m and then $50 when you take into account the marketing?
So, assuming $30 per copy sold (conservative given that it is made by the platform holder), it needed to sell about 1.6m copies, which it has done easily. Also bare in mind that when they sell it through the PS store, they get ALL the money! So yeah, this game was really profitable for Sony.
