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Zero999 on 06 March 2014
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czecherychestnut said:
fleischr said:

Kind of old, but Ubisoft has been on the record as saying it costs less than 1.3 million to port games to the U.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-07-23-ubisoft-says-wii-u-ports-costing-under-USD1-3-million

Yes, this article dates to when the U had only the 360 and PS3 to compete with. But Watch Dogs, CoD, AC, and Batman all have 360 and PS3 releases.

At 150k, selling for an average price of lets say $40 when you account for bargain bin sales in the later half of sales lifetime that's $6 million. More than likely lifts most 3rd party ports to profit.

Regarding Watch Dogs on Wii U. 25k preorders at $60 = $1.5 million -- probably just enough get a long ways into porting the game and begin adding new Wii U specific features. The preorder number has been requested and provided in other weekly preorder reports on VGC.

Wii U version of Watch Dogs will come, and will be successful for Ubisoft. But there's no denying Watch Dogs on all other platforms is a far more material concern.

*sigh* this has to be one of the most misrepresented quotes going around on this site. For one, that quote pertains to the 5 ports of existing games that ubi released in 2012, those being Assassin’s Creed III, Sports Connection, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth, Your Shape, Just Dance 4, and Rabbids Land. With the possible exception of Assassins creed III, none of those are huge games by any stretch, and therefore there €1m port cost is not indicative of normal port costs.

Secondly, a port is a game that's already finished elsewhere, and the process of porting involves copying the game assets across, recompiling and optimsing the game engine, qa and release. Most of the time and cost of a game is in the creation off all the game assets, the artwork, music, graphics. Poets are cheaper because they leverage already developed game assets.

Watch dogs Wii u isn't a port. It was developed concurrently with the other platforms, therefore the costs of developing the game assets is spread across all platforms including the Wii u. Therefore there is no way you can say it's approraching profitability on 25k preorders. 

Lastly, if a game sells for $40 , Ubisoft is lucky to get half that. Nintendo take a cut, the retailer takes a cut, packaging costs money. Ubi might see half that. same goes if the game sells for $60. 

you're very wrong on those costs calculations. the game costs in general and is ported to each platform as it goes along.

as for the rest, it's true about the profit per unit but we are talking about several hundred thousand units of sales in the long run. without a delay, it should easily have a WW opening of 100k+.