So I see some people trying to calculate total revenue Platinum got from Bayonetta. It's worth noting the actual breakdown of sales, both physical and digital. The breakdown is about this:
https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-60186931fa6306b13009f5b3d2fe8e25.webp
So Platinum could expect about $27 to $35 per unit sold at $60 depending on returns and other variables. Digital is much better as they only have to pay the platform fee, which for consoles is typically somewhere around $15 ot $20 so they make between $40 to $45 on each sale there.
If we assume the first game skewed heavily physical - a wise very good assumption - and a large chunk of games were sold at lower prices, they probably made, on average $20 to $25 a copy, maybe a bit more.
Bayonetta 2 held its price better and had a better digital splut but also sold much less. So if we assume a 60/40 physical to digital split - probabaly being generous to digital honestly - that gives them an average of somewhere around $37 a copy (being generous again here).
These are rough estimates but you could get more precise if you want. Either way, the numbers come up way short of 450 mil. Witha little over 2 mil sold for Bayo 1 (let's ballpark it at 2.25), we have a grand total of 56.25 mil. For Bayo 2, which has sold a bit over 1 mil total (lets go with 1.5mil), you got 54 mil. So grand total revenue they saw from sales of the games was 110.25 mil. Over 13 years. And that's revenue. For profit, you gotta subtract the cost of development and cost of marketing and so on.
Now there is merchandise and other things to add a bit to this, but Bayo was a more cult series than a big hit. The first gamw in particular was a smaller success than anticipated, which often has serious consequences when it comes to merchandise as an overabundance is produced. This in tandem with marketing cost is probably what caused it to be viewed as a financial failure
Long story short, the 450 mil is utter bogus that literally anyone genuinely curious about the revenue the series has made would know was way off. Unless said person just wanted to drum up controversy and sympathy by painting a patently false representation of the situation by implying Platinum has some dragon's hoard of Bayo money that doesn't exist stashed away.
Last edited by Nuvendil - on 16 October 2022
