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Forums - Sony - Ryan Payton: Million MGS4 Launch Day quote is Incorrect

makingmusic476 on 08 February 2008

Remember the report from Reuters quoting Ryan Payton as saying that MGS4 would have to sell 1 mil. on day one to make a profit?  Well, it turns out he never actually said that.

From his interview on the latest Bionic Commando podcast:

I wish I could send a message out to the whole world, 'cause I hear about this all the time. It was a story from Reuters, so it was literally sent to every news source around the globe. Yeah, that's how I was quote. If you notice, in the news story, I have lots of quotes in there with quotation marks, but that part of the story isn't in quotation marks.

I gotta be honest, I took twenty different interviews that day at E For All, and I remember talking to a lot of people. I remember talking to Kemp Powers at Reuters who wrote that story. And he was very interested in hearing about the console war, about Sony versus Microsoft, and what are we doing, are we going to go over to Microsoft, how much will they pay us. You know, all this weird stuff.

Number one, that million dollar figure is incorrect. I don't even know how many figures we'd need to sell to be profitable. More importantly, that's not something you really talk about in an interview. It's nothing I'd ever say. It could've been something like, 'You guys need to sell at least a million copies to be profitable, right?' 'Well, yeah, that sounds about right.' Worldwide, obviously, right? I don't think that's too controversial, but it blew up... I've been trying to contact Kemp Powers over at Reuters to see, I don't know if he recorded it on tape, but I'd love to hear it. So we can set the record straight..

Source: Kotaku

 



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DSLover on 08 February 2008

not surprised, on launch day seemed a bit silly to me. I'm sure it needs a million copies, maybe more to break even, but on launch day!.



 

 

Dallinor on 08 February 2008

The whole "million on day one" quote did seem absurd to be honest.

I expect MGS4 will probably sell about 2 million, but that will be over a long period of time.



 

Lafiel on 08 February 2008

nah, I think it may reach the first million within 3 weeks of ww release and from there can go on to sell somewhere between 2.5 and 4 million within ~1 year,depending on how well it's received by reviewers and by gamers (casual + hardcore)



Rath on 08 February 2008

Assuming the ~$70M figure for development tossed around by the dev of GoW2 is correct how much would it actually have to sell to break even?

I mean there can't be much more than $15 in royalty per copy sold can there? In which case around 5M copies would be a minimum, of course Sony quite possibly payed towards dev costs...



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makingmusic476 on 08 February 2008
Rath said:
Assuming the ~$70M figure for development tossed around by the dev of GoW2 is correct how much would it actually have to sell to break even?

I mean there can't be much more than $15 in royalty per copy sold can there? In which case around 5M copies would be a minimum, of course Sony quite possibly payed towards dev costs...

I seriously doubt the accuracy of the $70 mil. figure. That would make tie it with the most expensive game in history (Shenmue), BEFORE marketing expenses are added in. It's definitely over $50 mil. by now, but $70 mil. seems a bit too high. Even KZ2 hasn't hit that mark yet, and Sony has allowed them to make contracts with all sorts of second parties to help with lighting engines, etc., and I can guarantee you that GG aren't as good as Kojima Productions at managing a budget.

As for royalties, I've heard that the developer gets around 30-40% of the total sales revenue of a game, so that would be $20-$25 or so for every game sold at $59.99. Of course, that's just what I've heard, so don't quote me on it. :P



Played_Out on 08 February 2008

The $70m is obviously b*ll*x, just like the $1m on day one figure was obviously b*ll*x.

Don't believe everything you hear.

@makingmusic476
Why do you say it's definitely over $50m? I'm pretty sure no information has been released, so any figure is just pure speculation. I seriously doubt it is even that much, although it is certainly feasible.



hunter_alien on 08 February 2008

20 $ / game for developers is probably right , so if the 70 million mark is correct , than 3.5 million copys have to be sold to eliminate development cost , and that is certain to happen ..

BTW : 1 million copys on day 1 was absurd indeed :P



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