Lazard Analyst: PS3 & 360 games need to sell 600k to break even, Wii 300k

[Sullla]

mrstickball said:

In the case of GTAIV, sales won't miss a beat. Yes, they had to go on 2 consoles, but sales wise, GTAIV should get to GTA:SA levels or higher. For RE5's case, I see it doing better than any other RE yet.

I agree with most of what you say, mrstickball, but not this. San Andreas sold slightly under 15 million copies; it is the 11th best-selling game of all time according to vgchartz. Do you really think Grand Theft Auto IV is going to sell at the same rate - or go higher? Currently, even if every single 360 and PS3 owner in the world bought the game, the sales still would fall short of that number. You're basically saying that GTA4 will be one of the top 10 selling games in the history of video games. I think it will do well, but not THAT well! The 360 and PS3 just don't have the install base necessary to sell anywhere close to that number of units.

I also don't see Resident Evil 5 topping 6 million in sales (which is roughly what the best game in the series, RE2 did). The Resident Evil games have been decreasing in sales over the past few generations; take a look:

Name	Console	Publisher	Japan	America	Others	Total
	Resident Evil 2	Capcom	2.28	1.93	1.61	5.82
	Resident Evil	Capcom	1.68	2.10	1.27	5.05
	Resident Evil 3	Capcom	1.55	1.13	0.84	3.52
	Resident Evil: Code Veronica X	Capcom	0.34	1.04	0.69	2.07
	Resident Evil 4	Capcom	0.49	0.67	0.75	1.91
	Resident Evil 4	Capcom	0.22	0.94	0.45	1.61
	Resident Evil	Capcom	0.36	0.63	0.41	1.40
	Resident Evil Outbreak	Capcom	0.47	0.53	0.33	1.33
	Resident Evil 0	Capcom	0.45	0.52	0.29	1.26
	Resident Evil: Code Veronica	Capcom	0.47	0.42	0.25	1.14

If you add together PS2 + GC sales for Resident Evil 4, the total comes out to just about the same as RE3 (3.52 million), although the recent Wii sales push that figure up a bit. Still nowhere close to RE1/2 levels though. The low install bases will again limit the amount of sales done by 360/PS3. I can certainly see 2-3 million, but 6? Not going to happen, I'm afraid.

Not a single "next-gen" game has hit 5 million in sales yet (Gears is closest at 4.25 million, and Wii Play next at 3.76 - I am obviously not counting Wii Sports here). With that in mind, you might want to be careful about predicting a 6 million seller and a 15 million (!) seller in the same post.