How much do the major console manufacturers (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo) keep for every Bungie, Konami, Electronic Arts or THQ game sold? I know this number is high because MSFT and SNE sell their consoles at a loss hoping to rope in buyers and cash in when games are sold. Also, this must be great for Nintendo, because 1) they are making money on their console 2) They are the main publisher for their own games... PS: I love this site, I wish I'd come across it earlier this year! I picked up some Nintendo stock earlier this month and I'm already up over 10%. Before buying I had a hard time estimating Nintendo's sales strength. Thanks VG!

Sucks to be a developer, but I guess 10% of a blockbuster like Gear o' War can't be too bad for the dev. team. Hmm, I'm trying to figure out how to play the market on a breakout hit like Gears. I guess a safe play would be Best Buy or Microsoft but it would be nice to be able to capitalize. Nintendo (NTDOY) , by virtue of the fact that they are both Developer, Console Owner etc has been good to me. It is up 70% this year, I wish I'd gotten in earlier. It would be nice to find a couple more gems like Nintendo which are sitting on breakout hits.

I thought Sony made about $8 on a full priced PS2 game, so about 20%.

Its usually between 8-to-15 dollars per title. There are several factors such as deals made with the developer, deals made with the publisher. Bungie there isn't any royalities since they are part of Microsoft so they recieve their funding from the company. But take for example Developer X they go to Publisher Y to get their game on Console Z. The Console Manufacture takes $10 of the revenues, the store makes about $15 of the revenue, the Publisher take $15 of revenue so the developer only ends up with $10 per game if they are lucky sometimes the Publisher takes a lot more because they are in charge of things such as advertising and getting it publicity so they take more when they have to spend more. So sometimes the one that ends up getting screwed is the people making the games not the Console manufacture, not the publisher (unless the title really bombs), its the developer.