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Forums - Gaming - Do most still have a 2007 mindset (regarding FFXIII)

noname2200 on 21 July 2008
BengaBenga said:
BMaker11 said:

Ehhm, I really don't think MGS4 made Konami a lot of money. In fact I think they would have had a better return on investment if they had put the entire development budget on the bank for 4 years.

Seriously, the 2.5 million sales the game has so far is definitely not enough to make a decent amount of money. And no, breaking even is NOT a success. A game like MGS4 is Konami's major franchise and only releases once every four years or so. It needs a pretty high ROI to satisfy shareholders.

 

I hadn't realized that the game sold so little (so far). Considering how front-loaded it is, that's not very good news for Konami. I hope for their sake that the game's being severely undertracked, because if not they've just thrown away three years of development time.

@OP: if this site is correct, don't be so sure that MGS4 has made a lot of money in profits. $150 million is a ton, but after royalties, manufacturing, shipping, retailers' cuts, and other expenses, Konami probably received less than half of that amount. Considering how expensive the game was rumored to be, and how much extra money the advertising blitz cost, well...like I said earlier, I hope the game's being severely undertracked.

That said, your friend doesn't sound like he's the most up-to-date person regarding the gaming industry, so don't worry too much.

 



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FJ-Warez on 21 July 2008
DMeisterJ said:

2.5 million to 3 million shipped unreasonable?

I mean, the game will eventually go on to sell at least 4 million, which would put it in the 4.5-5 million shipped range, which would be 270 million -300 million base revenue, that's without the people who bought the Limited 90 buck edition of the game, and minus the microtransactions for MGO.  And again, however Sony paid the company which was most likely done through marketing the game.  I think Kojima/Konami will have made out pretty well. 

And again, we have no clue whether the game cost 100 million or not, but I'd be pretty certain that it costed less than GTA IV.

 

How do you know that costed less than GTA4?



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BengaBenga on 21 July 2008
noname2200 said:
BengaBenga said:
BMaker11 said:

Ehhm, I really don't think MGS4 made Konami a lot of money. In fact I think they would have had a better return on investment if they had put the entire development budget on the bank for 4 years.

Seriously, the 2.5 million sales the game has so far is definitely not enough to make a decent amount of money. And no, breaking even is NOT a success. A game like MGS4 is Konami's major franchise and only releases once every four years or so. It needs a pretty high ROI to satisfy shareholders.

 

I hadn't realized that the game sold so little (so far). Considering how front-loaded it is, that's not very good news for Konami. I hope for their sake that the game's being severely undertracked, because if not they've just thrown away three years of development time.

@OP: if this site is correct, don't be so sure that MGS4 has made a lot of money in profits. $150 million is a ton, but after royalties, manufacturing, shipping, retailers' cuts, and other expenses, Konami probably received less than half of that amount. Considering how expensive the game was rumored to be, and how much extra money the advertising blitz cost, well...like I said earlier, I hope the game's being severely undertracked.

That said, your friend doesn't sound like he's the most up-to-date person regarding the gaming industry, so don't worry too much.

 

 

No, it's not undertracked. The numbers have been adjusted upward. Japan has some 600.000 sales, US 1 million and around 1 million in Europe as well. The game will have a hard time making 4 million copies. That's ok sales, but not for MGS4. Combined cost (development + marketing) should be around $75 million.

Remember that Konami earned shitloads of money on the PS2 MGS's. And now it has spend more than any of the previous games, but earned less. That's a pretty bad business strategy if you ask me.

MGS4 is the perfect example of an industry that doesn't have a clue anymore, the development costs are really not sustainable anymore.

This graph is awesome, it shows what is happening. Mind you these are pure development costs without marketing etc. Development costs for average games have risen 4 fold. This automatically means that in order to achieve the same profits you have to sell 4 times as much games (Sure, HD games are $10 more expensive, but licensing fees have risen as well). So for MGS4 to have the same impact on Konami's financials it should sell around 16 million copies. Which of course will never happen.

From Factor 5 GDC conference.

 



Leetgeek on 21 July 2008

It's not just game sales it's the moneyhat.



alucardremixed on 21 July 2008

Sorry Bmaker, some posters haven't matured since 2007. Still claiming games wont sell on the PS3, stating bs " It will sell on the 360 better if it was exclusive " wow. Well i see starcraft got a new avatar



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jenny on 21 July 2008

No matter how good a game does on one platform, the question remains, would you rather sell 10 million units or 20 million units. You will always sell more, no matter what if its multiplatform. Same goes for games like Halo 3, it could easily be past 10 million now,maybe even 15 million if only they released it on the PS3. Its up to the publisher.



Hawk on 21 July 2008

It's akin to the "Xbox 360 only has first person shooters" mentality. I understand the annoyance.



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Fishie on 21 July 2008
BMaker11 said:

I just came home, and I saw this on my AIM:

xxxxxx (8:20:33 PM): oh wow good status message
xxxxxx (8:21:04 PM): ff is only going to be on xbox because they wouldnt have made any money putting it only on ps3
xxxxxx (8:21:09 PM): just like gta
xxxxxx (8:21:18 PM): and all those other former ps3 exclusives

Does ANYONE here still believe that any big budget PS3 exclusive won't make money? Last time I checked, MGS4 made PLENTY of money, but I think my friend here, and many others ignore that (or don't know about it) and continue to believe everything that went on in the first half of 2007

MGS4 did not turn a profit yet.