the most disturbing thing about this statistic isn't bringing up FFXIII or whoever you guys want to bash. But instead it is going to the reason we are just gonna be getting FF14, FF15, GOW6, GOW4, Madden XX, COD8, Rainbow Six 4, Gears 5, GTA9, GT8, ect.

notice all the #'s. Where are the new original games. This is the saddest thing about our industry current slippery slope.

True.  Wasn't their one point where Nintendo was making more money then the rest of the videogame industry combined. (Which granted hardware is included there.)

Well, that would explain why most game companies are in the red - included the giants EA, TakeTwo and many others.

If true, that is a truly abysmal percentage rate and there will have to be major changes in the industry or it will implode - of course, many people on this site have been saying that for some time.

This is why Nintendo took the course it did. Even if Wii & DS weren't the runaway successes they are, Nintendo would still easily be the most profitable publisher out there.

"My guess and analysis shows that less than 3 out of 10 games recover their development and marketing costs with boxed goods sales"

Please back up those numbers Mr. Deering. Does he include every little indie studio there is? Most of the big players must be able to make money otherwise the wouldn't be big players on the scene.

I think the changes that need to be made are not taking 4,5,6 years to make a game. As great as I think MGS4 was, it shouldn't have taken 4 years. We have known about FF13 for 3 years now? and was in production before that and Japan won't get it until next year and everyone else until 2010.

I would bet my last dollar that Insomniac isn't worried about money. They release a game every year, and this year they will release 1 ps3 game and 1 psn game. They get some help because they are second party (they gets lots of tools to speed development) but they still go out and help educate other companies in techniques to do things or do things better and faster with the ps3.

Don't know what you're talkin about. Many very good new IP's are already out this gen which will have a sequel. (No Wii games included, because I'm not so into the Wii library)

Assassin's Creed

Bioshock (Well I admit it's sort of a sequel to System Shock 2)

Mass Effect

Skate

Lost Odyssey

Blue Dragon

Resistance

Saints Row

Rockband

Gears of War

There WILL be much more of new IP's this gen and the next.

 It's true - many box office flops make money in the after market of DVD, rentals,TV.   Hellboy is a good example.  Made a meager 26m on a 60m budget at the box office but did great once released in DVD eventually spawning a sequel.

Unfortunately there's no equivalent after market for games.  Many big budget games have a very small window to make their money before gamers are onto the next big thing (much like summer blockbuster movies) but no secondary market to recoop losses when they don't.

Yess...Blizzard, EA, Activision and all of the other big guns of video game development have been losing money on 70% of their games since the dawn of time...

Doesn't sound too realistic.

The problem with most companies in the industry these days is that they're still going by the same model they used last generation. For example, why did THQ put Wall-E on the PS3 and 360? It obviously cost quite a bit, and the games sold almost nothing on these two platforms. Same with games such as Sega Superstars Tennis, Harry Potter, Kung Fu Panda, etc. Iron Man showed that movie based titles can sell well on the HD consoles, even if the game didn't break a profit. Developers are going to have to realize that the strategy of putting their games on as many consoles as possible is just not going to cut it. Weaker series are going to be eliminated as they won't sell enough to recover development costs. Obscure games will only have a chance on the Wii and DS.

Developers and publishers are going to have to take a long, hard look at the demographics of each system and what will sell and what won't. The consoles aren't the same as their predecessors. None of the consoles are like the Playstation 2. Software companies might start to realize what games belong on what system.

FFXIII is a perfect example of this, Square's been bankrupt in the past but this could be it, also the port of that game to the Xbox360 is needed but they still wont break even unless they develop it for the DS because the DS = money. j/k

@OP
The market decides which companies go and which stay, at this point the market made it's decision and these companies are trying to surivive, but the more they survive the more they canabalize each other.

Analogy: It's like going to Antartica because you heard of a heavy water source which would lead to world domination, the only problem is you crash landed, so the first thing you do is find heat and then food, of course heavy water doesn't put food on the table but corpses of passengers do. In the movie I'm refferencing though about 3 people surived, it was based on real events.

"Alive" if anyone is interested.