Kyuu said:
Is the $80 million budget confirmed? And does it include marketing? For a studio that makes one game every 4 or 5 years, I very much doubt current Sony would be happy with it selling anything less than 5 million copies... Driveclub had the trajectory of a 5 million+ seller, that didn't stop Sony from closing Evolution Studios which were apparently half the size of Housemarque. And the Sony of that time was lenient compared to the current one. Saros isn't 100% guaranteed to review or sell better than Returnal either. I think this game is the studio's last chance but I'd love to be proven wrong. "0% chance" of them getting closed sounds a tad optimistic lol. |
Housemarque Studio head said that Saros cost similar to develop as Alan Wake II(this is notable as it’s the most expensive entertainment product ever made in Finland). Alan Wake II had a development cost of €50m and marketing cost of €20m. So Saros’ strict development cost is likely slightly lower than €50m and its marketing is unknown.
It should also be noted that Sony don’t close down many studios for making games that don’t sell very often. Almost always it is studios that are struggling to get products developed. Japan studio is famous for making lots of games that didn’t sell well but the point they got closed down was when their output dropped to almost nothing and one of the Santa Monica Execs was sent their to manage the studio and get them all working on a big project, but the game just didn’t get anywhere.
