By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sony - ps3 production budget for big games

Videogirl on 29 December 2008

You're really pulling numbers out of thin air here, the rumor that said KZ2 doubled its 30 million budget to reach 60 million comes directly from Surfer Girl... and we all know how unreliable that source is.



Around the Network
celine on 29 December 2008

Lol blast from the past.
The news was that Namco CEO said , back in 2006, that a PS3 game need to sell 500K to break even.



 “In the entertainment business, there are only heaven and hell, and nothing in between and as soon as our customers bore of our products, we will crash.”  Hiroshi Yamauchi

TAG:  Like a Yamauchi pimp slap delivered by Il Maelstrom; serving it up with style.

BengaBenga on 29 December 2008
Thrillhouse said:
Here is simple math (Broken down in easy speak)
Obviously this isn't rocket science, but I bet it comes within 25% of reality.

If your game costs $20 million to make
(AFTER EVERYTHING HAS BEEN APPLIED)

And your game costs $60 a pop...

You need to sell 333,334 copies to break even... yay!

=)

 

Here's some slightly more complicated math, although still very basic:

Retailer: wants money
Shipment to store: costs money
Disc + case: costs money
Marketing: costs loads of money
Nintendo/Sony/MS: yeah they also want money

In short: of those $60 you pay in the store only $20-$30 actually end up covering the costs of the publisher.



McStormy1 on 29 December 2008

MGS4's budget according to Ryan Payton was actually 70 million$. Killzone2 is somewhere in that ballpark as well.



McStormy1 on 29 December 2008
Ail said:
RPG said:
BengaBenga said:
We know that GTA4 was 100 million and Lost Planet little over 20 million to make. Those are afaik the only two specific numbers we have for this gen.

MGS4 is estimated around 50 million, Killzone is rumoured to be 65 million. This is likely including advertising.

On average 20-30 dollars of a game go to the publisher, but for first party games there are no licensing fees, so this is $8 per sold game higher for PS3 for Sony published titles.

So GTA4's break even point was 3.3-4 million units, Lost Planet 700k-1 million. Be aware that break even is a bad result for a company, I think a return on investment of 20% is the lower end of success.

 

MGS4 must have given Konami a very tidy profit then. GT5 is most definitely the most expensive first party game, dont even need numbers when I know PD is huge and the game has been in production for years. Sony cater to every whim and need of PD as well most probably, cant blame them after what they have done. I doubt Killzone 2 will ever make a profit but that game seems to be a "look at what the PS3 can do" game and simply establishes Guerrilla as a major first party.

Home is what I am most interested in, any estimations on how much that cost to make?

 

MGS4 has sold over 3.5 million copies so far, so profit is probably already around 25 million $, a 50% return, not very tidy in most business books.........

 

 MGS4 has sold over 4.5 million to retailers. Konami doesn't care about sold to consumers because they get their money from retailers. Also, going by the sales listed within this site for anything MGS warrants a raised eyebrow. Konami and other sources themselves have claimed that MGS2 has sold over 7 million units (7.5+ including substance) and MGS1 has sold over 6.6 million units worldwide. This website has each by 1-2 million below Konami statements. I do not believe 2 million brand new copies of MGS2 are sitting on shelves 7 years after it's release.