$100 million budget.
$70 x 6 million = $420 million in revenue
$420m - $100m in the budget = $320 million left in revenue.

Now let's say the game had a $40 million marketing budget. That brings it down to $280 million in revenue.

Now it's time to pay the publishers and platform providers.
The platform holders (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Valve, etc.) gets a roughly 30% platformer's fee for each game that is sold on their platform (Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, iOS, Steam, etc) If a game sold 6 million copies at $70 for a total of $420 million in revenue - 30% of $420m is $126m

Subtract that from the $280 million we still have - That brings us down to $154 million left.
Now, it's the publishers' turn. And publishers get anywhere from 10-25% of the revenue generated from the game's sales. Which means that publishers get anywhere from $42 to $105m off this game.
That brings us down to a range of $49-$102 million left in revenue.

But we're not done! Now we gotta pay the retailers who sold the physical copies of the game!
Of the 6 million copies sold, let's say 2 million were physical; 2 million x $70 = $140 million in revenue.
Retailers take roughly 30% of that cut; Thirty percent of $140m is $42 million.
Subtract that, and we are left with a measly $7-$60 million in total revenue - Depending on the publisher's rate.

Then factor in how many of these games go on sale quickly and regularly, if not discounted altogether, whether the dev is using disc or cartridge, and that revenue goes down even further to the point where they may even be LOSING money despite selling 6 million copies.

That's one of the main reasons why as recently as 2023 (as far as I'm aware) - Even though Sony dwarfed their other two primary competitors in terms of revenue off their consoles, Nintendo - Who was 3rd place in revenue, was 1st in operating profit.

Now there are other factors to consider there, such as Sony's acquisition of Bungie. But in general, despite a massive discrepancy in revenue, Nintendo and Sony were surprisingly close in operating profit. And that's because whereas PlayStation's primary driving force and ecosystem is Third parties, Nintendo's primary driving force and ecosystem is... Nintendo! Whereas Sony has to share and split a lot of the costs and fees I just listed, Nintendo gets to keep almost all of it for themselves since they are the #1 software developer making money off their hardware - which sells at a profit while Sony (at least at the beginning) sells at a loss.

Which is why it baffles the Hell out of me why Sony (and Microsoft to a lesser extent, though they're more a PC company than a gaming company so I at least get it on their end) would:
A) Sell their games on PC - Effectively losing tens of millions on platformer fees to Valve - Who discount games on their stores quite frequently and had Sony's discounted fairly recently. Not to mention potentially losing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in hardware sales, which will then lead to reduced platformers' royalties, because now people who needed a PlayStation to buy and play Sony's 1st party games can now just wait patiently for the PC versions roughly 1-2 years later.
B) Over inflate their budget and spending on AAA games to diminishing returns. Hey Sony, instead of taking an eternity to make Interstellar, how about more Astrobot? How about more Ratchet and Clank. How about more of these AA offerings that are light on the budget and heavy on the fun to provide ample revenue and profits while we're waiting for the big boys? It's working wonders for Nintendo, it can work wonders for you too!

But it was AAA, the marketing budget alone was huge and the game looked amazing and certainly not cheap.  Fortnite is again a huge investment with costs being around 100 million each year atleast.

I'm pretty sure Valve absolutely cannot discount games from others without their permission. If Sony's games are discounted in PC, it's ultimately Sony's decision.

Dawg, no one is complaining that Super Mario Wonder didn't cost as much as BOTW to make, but you can't make BOTW with whatever the SMW budget was. You completely missed the point about different experiences.

I'm just saying that I believe gamers would keep buying in no matter what. There are too many examples of cheap games out there that are killing it right now for me to think any different. The developers just haven't wanted to go that route, yet.

We never hear about low budget games not earning their low budget back. It's simply not news worthy enough. A big budget game going into the red, especially from a big publisher is though.

Sure there are low budget break out games, but the chances of that happen I believe are pretty small.

As I've said a hundred times already, maybe games should stop being so ambitious. The scale and scope of these things is far beyond what the norm was just 20 years ago. I can beat Super Mario 64 or a Halo campaign in just two or three sittings. Now it's taking me weeks on end to beat games. These ever-growing game worlds do not come cheap, especially if they have any remotely good graphics. While huge games have their place, they were once rare, limited to genres like JRPGs. Now they're the norm.

"Price divided by hours to beat" was the worst mindset to ever afflict people's perception of a game's value, as was the idea that "short" and "linear" are bad things for a game to be. Video games are the only medium where the average "run time" has grown to such a degree. Movies still average in the 90 to 180 minute range (and the higher end of that range is often bemoaned as "too long"). Music albums still tend to run for the same length (40-70 minutes), and double albums are rare. The average TV season is actually getting shorter. And maybe that's just the inherent limits of their mediums. But video games can be arbitrarily large in scale and scope, and can get bigger and more detailed as tech progresses. Old school Mega Man levels were typically less than 20 screens in size. Now we have game worlds that are dozens of in-game square miles in size and take as long to simply traverse on foot than it did to beat a Mega Man game. Simply navigating these worlds is so time-consuming that the entire concept of "fast travel" had to be invented.

Sometimes it feels like the companies who make these games are never satisfied, as if they constantly have something to prove to older media. Their reach is exceeding their grasp, and games are getting more and more expensive as they take more people working longer periods of time. In less than 40 years we've gone from teams of a dozen people making quality games in less than a year to teams of many hundreds taking half a decade or more. That's an insane increase in manpower, and that increase in overhead is the primary driver of the massive explosion in average budget size. We're already reaching the point where some games (like GTA6) are costing upwards of a billion dollars or more. Compare this to an average of $20-40M for a 360 or PS3 game, or just a few million for a PS2 game. That kind of growth is clearly unsustainable, and something has to give at some point.

I remember hearing someone say it was revealed by a developer that Executives don't want to reduce budgets,though not sure where. I think a podcast or something.

I do think the budgets would probably be fine...if the gaming industry wasn't having an 'issue' with people playing old games longer. Without live service focus, I think this would be less of an issue. Still a mess but not as bad

Yeah the notion that every major game has to be a 100 hour long open world extravaganza with hours and hours of cinematic cutscenes, celebrity voice actors, and cutting edge graphics is leading to insanely bloated budgets.

I kinda miss when more games were focused, linear 8-10 hour experiences.

Even more reason to question Sony's decision-making as of late.