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Forums - Sales Discussion - Will Kojima's MS game make more profit than DS?

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Will the rumoured MS Kojima game make more profit than DS?

Yes, shit tons more. Koji... 10 35.71%
 
Nope, this is a disaster in the making. 4 14.29%
 
No profit or loss. MS wil... 7 25.00%
 
What profit? This game go... 7 25.00%
 
Total:28

So there are rumours which suggest Kojima is finalising a deal with MS for a new game and this game may be the epsiodic horror game Kohima wanted to make with Stadia and Sony.

This is one of those curious cases where it will be interesting to see the development financially for Kojima and where this may lead him too.

Death Stranding sold an approximate 4 million copies. If the average you make is between around $15 per sale (game was discounted at some point) then Kojima would have made around $60 million dollars for his studio. 

Now let's say MS deal is to launch his new episodic game on gamepass day one and they pay him up front, will MS pay for it and offer on top based on game time or will it be development cost and the cost of what would have been day one or week one sales?

$60mil in a year is no chump change, even half that isn't. Will MS pay for it and reward him accordingly or will it be a case of Kojima having to accept an offer as he has nowhere else to go? 

Kojima talent don't come cheap. From actors and musicians, to himself for that matter, a celebrity in his own right.

It will be even more interesting if his game launches around the same time as the rumoured MGS remakes from Sony and to see how they go on in sales.

I think this may be a landmark case study in Gamepass. If it goes wrong, expect:

1) Geoff Keighley to say stuff. 

2) Kojima having to go back to Sony or becoming less active.

3) questions being raised over profits for bigger games on gamepass.

If it goes well, I can see:

1) more Devs who were partners or worked for Sony to reach out to MS for gamepass funding.

2) Kojima to work on more MS projects.

Obviously, there a good chance everyone just stays quite and life moves on, but let's be honest here, who doesnt want to see how this plays out? Will there be a drop in quality? What engine will Kojima use? Will the project be star studded again? 



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I wonder if by the time this game comes out there will only be a game pass version. And I wonder if Microsoft cares about a single games profit over growing their subscriber numbers. It'll be interestig to see.
I suppose it'll be hard to know until then.



Fei-Hung said:

So there are rumours which suggest Kojima is finalising a deal with MS for a new game and this game may be the epsiodic horror game Kohima wanted to make with Stadia and Sony.

This is one of those curious cases where it will be interesting to see the development financially for Kojima and where this may lead him too.

Death Stranding sold an approximate 4 million copies. If the average you make is between around $15 per sale (game was discounted at some point) then Kojima would have made around $60 million dollars for his studio. 

Now let's say MS deal is to launch his new episodic game on gamepass day one and they pay him up front, will MS pay for it and offer on top based on game time or will it be development cost and the cost of what would have been day one or week one sales?

$60mil in a year is no chump change, even half that isn't. Will MS pay for it and reward him accordingly or will it be a case of Kojima having to accept an offer as he has nowhere else to go? 

Kojima talent don't come cheap. From actors and musicians, to himself for that matter, a celebrity in his own right.

It will be even more interesting if his game launches around the same time as the rumoured MGS remakes from Sony and to see how they go on in sales.

I think this may be a landmark case study in Gamepass. If it goes wrong, expect:

1) Geoff Keighley to say stuff. 

2) Kojima having to go back to Sony or becoming less active.

3) questions being raised over profits for bigger games on gamepass.

If it goes well, I can see:

1) more Devs who were partners or worked for Sony to reach out to MS for gamepass funding.

2) Kojima to work on more MS projects.

Obviously, there a good chance everyone just stays quite and life moves on, but let's be honest here, who doesnt want to see how this plays out? Will there be a drop in quality? What engine will Kojima use? Will the project be star studded again? 

How are you even pulling out your numbers. First, do you know what's revenue and profit? 60million you mentioned would be profits. For Revenue, let's first talk about cost. Development cost for a AAA title is 150-200million nowadays? To make everything short, if MS wants to pay for everything it would be 150mil + 60mil you mentioned for Kojima's profit = 210million bill. 

The above is way too simplified. Kojima is more likely asking for around 100million as funding. Any game with Kojima's name slapped on it will minimum sell 2million I think. 



Soren0079 said:

I wonder if by the time this game comes out there will only be a game pass version. And I wonder if Microsoft cares about a single games profit over growing their subscriber numbers. It'll be interestig to see.
I suppose it'll be hard to know until then.

I highly doubt Xbox is going to release Game Pass only titles. For one, Xbox has been very focused about giving players options on where and how to play games. Second, this would bring unnecessary bad press. Third, MS wants to maximize their profit. This would do the opposite.

Halo Infinite multiplayer will be Free to play. If they only cared about getting more subs, they wouldn't have gone this route. 

Last edited by smroadkill15 - on 13 April 2021

First we need to see if the rumor is true (and the title should include RUMOR on it).

But yes if the rumor is true MS would be paying the full development cost and possibly some bonus depending on how much it is played on GP or they get a cut only of the sales. And sure the more games can be financial success to devs on GP the more devs will look to go there. Now MS funding those or not will depend on how many new subs those brings.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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As a person that has been working in finance for 20 years, I dont believe 10% of those statements when they say the game generated a profit.
Most likely when they say "profit" means that sales of the game were enough to cover for development costs or generate a operational/project profit, not considering overhead costs, general and administrative costs, running costs of maintaining updates/servers to the game, depreciation of equipment and other stuff.
At the end of the day what a company/investor want is for games to pay for all of that and on top of everything generate a profit % (after all that stuff) that is around at least 10%.
A game like death stranding probably costed at least 60-80 million to be produced. Those 4 million copies were probably not enough to cover all development costs and bring a healthy profit that would justify a sequel or another project. Which by the way I think is the same problem that happened to MGSV.



Gamepasswill make that nearly impossible to quantify for anyone outside of Microsoft.



EnricoPallazzo said:

As a person that has been working in finance for 20 years, I dont believe 10% of those statements when they say the game generated a profit.
Most likely when they say "profit" means that sales of the game were enough to cover for development costs or generate a operational/project profit, not considering overhead costs, general and administrative costs, running costs of maintaining updates/servers to the game, depreciation of equipment and other stuff.
At the end of the day what a company/investor want is for games to pay for all of that and on top of everything generate a profit % (after all that stuff) that is around at least 10%.
A game like death stranding probably costed at least 60-80 million to be produced. Those 4 million copies were probably not enough to cover all development costs and bring a healthy profit that would justify a sequel or another project. Which by the way I think is the same problem that happened to MGSV.

Kojima has had a lot of problems with the scope of his games for a long time now, and I imagine that's going to bite him now that he's on his own. I imagine that was one of the reasons Konami kicked him out, considering how risk averse they've become in recent years. So either Kojima learns to scale down his projects, or he's going to have to join one of the platform holders to guarantee funds for his games.



You know it deserves the GOTY.

Come join The 2018 Obscure Game Monthly Review Thread.

This thread is extremely premature. We know exactly nothing about the new game, including whether one is even in the works. Anything said here is a straight up random guess.



Even if we knew the type of game and the scale of it, the fact that it would be on GamePass makes this discussion rather pointless. We'd never know the real numbers. For all we know, assuming the rumor is true, MS could have cut them a check that is already profit before the game is even out.