Many lols

A standard Wii game requires about 300-500k sales to break even, a big budget one needs about 1M.

A moderately high budget game that is pay to play, and is on 1.61 M and still selling? Fuck me, how can you even think that this game has done anything but printed money?

Its safer to assume they lost money or broke even. Very few titles actually make much money for the publisher.

How much do you think they made after you consider development, retailer, distribution, royalties, advertising, networking etc costs?

@ $40M @ $25 in the hand per copy, I don't think they would have made much money back at all on this project.

I would agree with you, except that it's pay-to-play in Japan and is something like the most successful subscription game of all time over there (or something)

yeah especially when all 3 other players already answered the phone calls and every single call states to kill the mystery player and everyone is looking at you when you hear "YOU ARE THE MYSTERY PLAYER!" out of your own Wiimote speaker...

1) The game makes a profit at $40M @ $25 in hand per copy :P

2)

MGS4 = $45 M

MH3 = $40 M

What the fuck were Capcom doing? Company hookers with built in blow dispensers?

As for the claim of $25 in hand, the game is pay to play, so the usual logic of how much the developer gets does not apply. For 90 days it's $20, and more expensive per day if you buy shorter.

The actual figures would certainly be at or below $20 Million for game development, advertising and server costs. Still nearly as much as was spent on Halo 3, which is on a much more power console and the advertising budget was MUCH higher.

Now lets assume $40 cash in hand per new game sale, to represent

1) Initial money from sales worldwide

2) Pay to play money from original Japanese owners

3) Pay to play money from Japanese owners who buy it second hand.

Now 1.61 * 40 >> 20

Ok, fine. I agree.

Also worth noting, Nintendo essentially paid for MH3's western advertising, so Capcom's not shouldering much financial burden there.  It did have a HUGE blitz in Japan, but then it also sold a million there and exceeded expected subscription revenues.

Capcom basically got the same sort of deal they did out of Microsoft for Lost Planet 1 (which had a a $20m ad campaign btw).  LP1 only sold 1.5m (and was projected to sell just 740k), there's no way that'd have been profitable if Capcom was paying for the advertising themselves.

This seems to be the general trend, and what I expected. Nice one

Probably wise, sadly on this case you were wrong :(

Understandable, lots of things here didn't make much sense unless you look closely...

Also, whoever said Tri deserves more sales- I agree! This game is AWESOME!

Yeah, more or less.  I think more context would help though, Other M's more sluggish but it'll still do decent numbers compared to most similar games (especially on Wii).  Boom Blox was an eventual success, but it basically flopped up front and only crawled to decent figures over the long haul.  The only unqualified success there is MH3 imo, and the only unqualified failure is RS2.