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Forums - Sales - First party PS3 games need to sell a million to break even.

BKK2 on 30 July 2008

Interview with Phil Harrison's replacement; Shu Yoshida, head of SCE WWS:

VB: Is game development getting more expensive?
SY: Very much so. That’s why we are having fun with PSN titles. The big disk-based titles are so much work. In the past, when we sold a million units of any game, that was great. But now a million is the breakeven point in disk games. It’s a very stressful business these days. It’s much more fun working on small titles on PSN on less than $1 million budgets. As any producer would do, we look at concepts and decide whether titles are in too small a niche for the Blu-ray disk games (which are far deeper than the casual fare on the PlayStation Network.)
But for PSN, we can proceed.

VB: What is the minimum a game has to sell these days?
SY: Disk-based games? I would say a million. If you spend $20 million to $30 million, with marketing investment, margins of $35 or $40 on a $60 game, then the recoup point is really high. It depends on the platform. For PSN games, it is $2 million tops. That is a more relaxing experience.


Link

Not surprising, but some interesting details on margins etc.



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Munkeh111 on 30 July 2008

Well all of their bigger 1st party games have sold over 1m



Zucas on 30 July 2008

Ouch. No wonder so many 3rd parties are going multiplatform.



Kasz216 on 30 July 2008

I think he means in general? Or i'd hope for third parties sake... as a lot of 3rd party companys make like, half or less then the people like Sony do becuase they arent' rich enough to publish. Then again 35-40 dollar margins? That's not right for a third party.



Nutboy on 30 July 2008

Wait, didn't Nintendo say SMG needed 250K to break even?

Anyway, this means that only 16 of their 21 first party games for Ps3 have broken even.



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bbsin on 30 July 2008

Does that mean KZ2 needs 2 million to break even? expect a huge marketing campaign folks.



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BKK2 on 30 July 2008
Kasz216 said:
I think he means in general? Or i'd hope for third parties sake... as a lot of 3rd party companys make like, half or less then the people like Sony do becuase they arent' rich enough to publish. Then again 35-40 dollar margins? That's not right for a third party.

Well, Sony's first party games usually have pretty big budgets, probably quite a bit higher than the average third party game. Margins will be lower for third party games, though.

 



MontanaHatchet on 30 July 2008
Nutboy said:
Wait, didn't Nintendo say SMG needed 250K to break even?

Anyway, this means that only 16 of their 21 first party games for Ps3 have broken even.

...What?

I think it depends on the game, though. Sony may be focusing on some of their higher selling games (Resistance, Ratchet & Clank), rather than smaller titles like Singstar and the MLB and NBA series. Games that include peripherals were also likely expected to make profit regardless because of the peripherals that were included.



 

 

TWRoO on 30 July 2008

PSN happens to be the most interesting part of the PSN to me, with the exception of LBP anyway.



Zuhyc on 30 July 2008

It all depends how much the game costs, how expensive the advertising is, etc.
So I find it hard to believe you can just say every game needs a million to break even.