FishyJoe said:
Bodhesatva said:
That's a strawman, Kasz. I never said they sold exclusively on graphics/tech; even in the case of Epic, I said they "partly or largely" sell on graphics/tech. This isn't black and white. We all have our priorities. Some people, like me, place very little emphasis on graphics and much more on gameplay; others place some emphasis on gameplay, some on I/O, and some on graphics; some put a large emphasis on graphics or "immersion," and less emphasis on gameplay and I/O. I largely agree with Sullla, by the way. I think there are missed opportunities on the Wii; I just think the situation a lot less obvious than "put all your AAA games on the Wii and you will see the sales!" One other thing to consider is that a game that costs 20 million to produce on the 360 and sells 5 million copies makes more money than a game that costs 10 million to produce on the Wii and sells 5 million copies. Therefore, the AAA games that sell 5-10 million (like Gears or CoD4) are particularly profitable on the PS3/360. This is one of the things discouraging blockbuster development on the Wii. |
Huh? How is this possible? |
Because more money is made per game sold.
Each 360 game costs 60 dollars. Of the 10 additional dollars per game, about 4-5 of it goes to publishers (2-3 goes to MS/Sony, as their royalty fees are higher. Another 2-3 goes to retailers, who get a larger share of the profits).
So if publishers are making 4-5 dollars more per game, that's an additional 4-5 million dollars per 1 million copies sold. The more a game sells, the more additional revenue is accrued from the increased cost of each copy. At 5 million copies, you're at 20-25 million additional revenue; at CoD4-level sales of 10 million, you're at 40-50 million additional revenue that simply would not exist if it were a Wii game.
In short, a game that sells 10 million copies would need to cost ~40 million less to develop to make more money on the Wii; that's a conservative estimate. As such, it's reasonable to assume that the giant, AAA games like CoD, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War and Halo make more money on the PS3/360 than they do on the Wii.
