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Kyuu said:
Software sales notably expanded when PC is taken into account which both MS and Sony now support. AA and AAA games cost more now to develop, but prices have also increased especially in Europe, and Sony games are retaining their prices much better than a few years back without selling less. Can you refer me to where it was shown that SM2 needs to sell 10 million to break even? Last I heard, the game cost $300 million (does the figure not include marketing?). Should generate profit at 5 million give or take. But more importantly, why do all games have to be some highend AAA anyway? Low-mid budget AAA don't cost nearly as much as SM2, and AA cost even less. Helldivers 2 is considered AA and it "only" cost $50 million to make. Nintendo is killing it with medium budget games. And a crap load of indies, A, and AA games are more successful than anything AAA from Microsoft. Microsoft's own Sea of Thieves (not to mention Minecraft lol) is probably a lot more successful than the bigger Halo Infinite. Higher development costs are more than cancelled out by games simply selling a lot more and averaging at higher prices in many cases. Availability on PC also greatly helps. |
Software sales notably expanded when PC is taken into account which both MS and Sony now support.
Yes, for sure but it also comes with up to a 30% cut and some impact over sales you would have made on hardware, overall the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks IMO but it's not a silver bullet solutions either.
AA and AAA games cost more now to develop, but prices have also increased especially in Europe, and Sony games are retaining their prices much better than a few years back without selling less.
The rise in cost is symptomatic of the issue, for like 30 years the market did not raise the base price of games absorbing rise in dev cost with the market expansion. Now they had to rise the price of game because budget increase have drastically accelerated while market have stagnated.
Can you refer me to where it was shown that SM2 needs to sell 10 million to break even?
Spiderman 2 was expected, prior to launch, to sell 10.5m copies and generate $75m in profits over a $315m budget. Now that's not bad and it's also conservative estimate but it's also one of, if not the most sure bet franchise Sony own.
But more importantly, why do all games have to be some highend AAA anyway? [...]
Amen
Higher development costs are more than cancelled out by games simply selling a lot more and averaging at higher prices in many cases.
TBF I'm not saying the industry is not generating any profits, the ROI is just down compare to what it used to be and enough so that investment are perceived to be better spent elsewhere. Also there's more to this than just dev cost and market size, like over the last 10 years GAAS have grown to take huge segment of the industry and it create very few but highly successful titles that concentrate player spending making it more difficult for smaller title to make it.
