Atlus and Tecmo seemed pretty happy with how their games sold so I'd say that's a good sign so far.

Yea, im hoping thats it. I think ive started freaking out more cause PS4 is getting all these great games and i know full well they dont sell close to other high profile games and excluding team size, i find it hard to believe that these games that play better and look just as well cost sooo much cheaper to make. I wasnt including indies in my calculations mind you.

To me, that sounds like the "average" budget for western AAA games.

But don't take my word for it - Wikipedia claims estimated budget for Nioh was 3bln yen, or about $26,000,000 USD.  They probably made out OK, if Wikipedia is trustworthy in this case.

Can't find a published budget for Persona 5 but just going by sales figures on this site, it seems to be roughly in sync with Persona 4.  At this point in that series' lifecycle, I'd say they need a "game changer" (pun intended) if they're hoping to turn the series into a blockbuster, so they should be budgeting accordingly.

Edit: GTA V and Call of Duty are way up  there, over $200 million....but those are top of the top-selling games.  Most games don't seem to disclose budget amount, because, why would they?

Ni-oH and Persona 5 did not sell poorly. Your post infers that you think there is general number that indicates good or bad sales. Whether sales are good or bad is based on: budget, genre, and the series itself. Persona 5 exceeded all 3 making it a sales success even at Just 1.5 mill-ish (nearing 2 mill)

There are tons of game series that manage to live despite initial release selling poorly. Answer is yes.

Whos to say i dont go out and buy salads and pomegranate juice?

When i was reading those estimates, they did not include advertising into their assumptions so that 80-100 million was just for all the in house shit. To me, games like Nioh and Persona and Nier have all the quality and polish of those higj production budget games so if we exclude their team size and are aware that those estimates didnt factor advertising costs, i just cant see why they wouldnt cost at least close to an annual COD or Creed or Battlefield. Like i said i could be completely off the mark here as i only read this about 3 years back on some website but whatever it is, i just worry every so often about the health of those amazing gems that go under most peoples radars and i just wanted some thoughts on whether its warrented.

Well thank god than, thats a decent sign. I just want more cool, unique shit ya know, i dont want all the dude bros deciding what games are going to populate our market.

Imagine a system with exclusives which have great art direction, have pretty big budgets, and sell really close to other high profile games. And they play and look better than most AAA titles.

If only...

*cough*Switch*cough*

I tried looking for it awhile back on wikipedia and couldnt find it so im glad you did, thanks cause now i feel better for my gaming future.

Yeah, as it has been said just because a game doesn't sell 20 million units, it doesn't mean it isn't successful. It all depends on if the developer/and or publisher in some cases make a profit on the software. The internet in general has cultivated this thought that they can speak for game developers on if their game is successful or not. And while, sure Persona 5 isn't as successful as I don't know GTAV, it didn't sell 9000 copies in its first week like another game... (cough, Marvel vs. Capcom)

I thought i made it clear but my bad. I was considering success in terms of the average videogame production budget that i read about a few years back. It didnt include advertisements into their figurings either. So with that knowledge, id look at games like Doom, Neir, Persona and Nioh and assume that based on everything ive played and then compare these to them, i couldnt see how they could cost soo much less. Then id look at sales figures and see Persona or Nioh at 1 mil while Watch Dogs sat at 5 mil and i got worried and began prematurely wishing for the good ole days lol.

Anyways, it seems like i was wrong over all and you guys all seem pretty unfazed about the future of these niche games so im just gonna go with that and try to put this out of my mind.