AAA Wii third-party support on the way, says Capcom community specialist

[Ail]

bardicverse said:

Ali said:

For really big AAA that will sell 5 millions+ copies, HD platforms are probably more profitable than the Wii actually.

Because the developers get substantially more per copy sold.

Someone mentionned it in another thread, right now you stand to loose more if a game fails and gain more if it succeed on HD consoles...

And this gen there has yet been a big AAA game that failed on consoles...( even a game like Heavenly Sword that was hyped a lot and kinda tanked still sold over 1 million units and probably recouped development costs..)

PS : I know Heavenly Sword isn't AAA but it was hyped like an AAA game before it was released ( it was the big PS3 game for E3 2006)

 

 

We've had this discussion a few weeks ago, regarding profit margins, but we'll throw it down again -

Average HD game development for AAA title runs roughly about 20 mil. Wii AAA development runs about 5 mil.

Lets say that both versions sell 1 mil copies. The Wii version sells for 50 per copy, and 60 on the HD version.

On average, after retail fees, manufacturing and distribution, there is an expense of $25 per copy, bringing the income per unit to 25 and and 35 respectively.

The Wii version made a total of 25 mil and the HD version 35 mil.

Wii version cost 5 mil to make, making a margin of profit at 20 mil

HD version cost 20 mil to make, making a margin of profit at 15 mil

So with that, we now have numbers to play off of. As it stands, the developer has enough money to make another 4 Wii games free of development expense, and would have to invest 5 mil to make another HD game. Consideration has to be made for the fact that there are 2 HD systems, and these numbers would only imply 500k each or some variation leading to 1 mil. This is where the strength of multiplatform development comes into play. So the argument can be made that HD games made for both systems might be more profitable than Wii standalone development, but exclusive games on HD systems will not be as profitable as exclusive Wii games.

What does this all solve or mean? It means that it depends on the developer's viewpoint. Development for the Wii means that the company can sustain future products on the back of successful published games, gaining larger profits in the long run. Development for HD systems in a multiplatform situation (Xb360 and PS3) have potential to reach a combined larger audience (though not dramatically so - 32 mil as opposed to 27 mil) and hope to sell twice as many units as a Wii exclusive. This would allow for a larger up front profit if 1 mil sells on each of the 2 hd platforms (10 mil more) but only allow for 1 more HD game to be made using those profits.

If you want to crunch numbers off of those stats, if the subsequent games were 1 mil sellers per system, the Wii version could make 4 games off of its profit, making a total next wave profit of 80 mil. The HD version would allow for 1 more game to be made, keeping it at 15 mil profits.

In conclusion, it all depends on what the developers plans are. Quick up front profit, multiplatform HD games are the way to go. Long term sustainance in the industry (important for newer and indie devs) Wii development is the way to go.

I think this may have been my longest post ever. :D

Except you can't sustain the maths of 1 Wii games leading to 4 Wii games and so on without saturating the market and then those games start selling a lot less due to saturation....

The gaming market is not so different from the movie market, each year there is only room for so many blockbusters....

And you don't want to release your blockbuster at the same time as the competition, in the same way you don't want to make a blockbuster very similar to the one the competition is making...

That's one issue for big budgets games on the Wii right now. Developers have zero visibility on what is coming, especially from Nintendo, the dominant player on the market. Do you want to take the risk of developing a big costly RPG game and then have Nintendo announce the new Zelda or another RPG game coming out at the time your game was planned ? That's a costly risk that could force you to delay your game release by as much as 6 months and greatly affect the financial results for that year...

The nice thing about HD consoles right now is that both Sony and MSFT have provided very good visibility on their future plans and you can position yourself around that ( anyone knows it would be suicide to release a big budget Racing game on the PS3 around the first half of 2009 with GT5 coming out.. The same way people knew that releasing a mega budget PS3 game in Q2 this year was a bad idea with GTA4 and MGS4 already planned for that date..)