$40 per game is wayyyyyyyyyyyyy to generation (EDIT: Generation? WTF was I thinking. High*) for a Wii game per unit profit. $60 RRP PS360 games are sold to retail at an average of $38 per copy (I can dig up a source if you care), and that's not including royalties and production costs.

Anyway $710 million - http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/17/take-two-gta-franchise-made-710-million-this-year/ There's lots of them all over the internet if you do a quick google. I struggle to figure out where they made that much as well, but when you're dealing with the biggest gaming property in exsistance retailers and console manufacturers can be easier to negotiate with.

Which leads me back to my point, stop comparing Boom blox and GTA. It's silly, pointless and makes absolutely no sense.

That's too bad, because it really does simplify the general situation between platforms. Wish you did see the relevence.

I should go tit for tat because your neglecting the ad campaign and redesigned PS3's specifically made for MGS4 and of course it's bundle.

Two sides to the same coin.

That was $40 per game revenue before retailers or console manufacturers take their cut ... Anyways, the point of comparing Boom Blox to Grand Theft Auto 4 was to demonstrate another way to look at "Success"

Very few (successful) companies look at products based on gross sales or gross revenue generated by a particular product, and tend to aim for a healthy return on investment from every product they produce. To put it another way, a company who spent $100,000,000 on a single game and $25,000,000 on their entire line-up for the Wii would consider their Wii efforts to be as successful as their big game if it generated 1/4 the profit.

 My point was that only 1% of developement begins with them setting their sights at matching the top selling games of the past 5 years or so. Look at one game which sold well and thinking it's a good example for others to follow is just plain idiocy.

 I'm not ignoring MGS4 but I think with games of that scale trying to 'guess' figures is foolish. No one knows how much it cost to make, how much it cost to market and how much Konami got out of Sony to keep it exclusive - but you can bet they didn't just let the game stay on PS3 without 'incentives'.

 I hate the fact that people regard M&S as third party anyway. For all intents and purpsoes it's first party, Nintendo did the marketing, they helped make the game and they published it in Japan. EA ain't gonna look at that and think "Wow we could get 6 million sales too!".

But if your point was to just say that M&S on Wii was probably more profitable then MGS4 then er, well done. I'd agree with that too, albeit I do stress the "Probably".

 Erm, Okay. In my opinion publishers are much more focused on having one big property that can bring in as much huge revenue as possible as often as possible. That's why Take 2 have GTA, Square Enix have Final Fantasy, Capcom have Resident evil, Konami MGS etc. I'm sure companies look at in your way too but ultimately they're asking themselves how they can establish the next huge big selling IP. I'm not saying this the approach I believe they should have but it's definitely how the industry has gone thus far.

 We really don't know solid figures and I can't be arsed to try and estimate something as crazy as that, we're going off on a tangent now anyway.

I still dont understand why people look at revenue as making money. Sure its part of it but when it all boils down to is profit.

@jammy2211

The point of the post wasn't to use reffered numbers but rather an example of what is understood and the logic behind it. You can disagree with it or not, but the point is that as long as M&S has sold and equal ammount of units as MGS4 that MGS4 will not over lap it in profit, but at the same time M&S will not over lap MGS4 in revenue. That's all.

There's nothing to debate here, I'm not speaking facts I'm explaining a generalization. As with all generalizations though they don't apply to every case. Also your assuming I'm not factoring marketing, shipping, production, R&D and all the other niceties but I am, the quantities I used are just figments of my imagination, I could very well have said: "MGS4 would need 7 units sold to break even thus..." But for familiarity I used numbers that could be close to the actual numbers and if they are, then it still wouldn't augment in anyway my point.

Now you want to say that M&S is a 1st party title, I had a nice talk with another guy who thought the same thing, almost a year ago; I'll say this, before Mario and Sonic could be published Sega had to license the IP's of Nintendo and for that alone this game is a 3rd party title.

Unless you want to say Sega didn't request Nintendo license the use of them - in which case either your misinformed or your lying. All Nintendo did was supervise, the game was designed by Sega Sports and Sega Japan. In Japan and Japan alone was this game published by Nintendo, you seem to not want to mention this.

Fixed!

but anyway, do you actually pay attention to much?

1.  I'm pretty sure it's now considered 'Common Knowledge' that Wii games cost MUCH less to develope then HD.

2. $10 to $20 million does not = $20 million - It's an estimation, Both games made more then $10 million so it's somewhere in between 10 to 20 million.

3. Only retarded people think games selling more then 500K and make a profit = failed! If that's the case then most games of last Gen = Failed!  that's just Dumb...... although a game selling 1 million and loosing money does = failed!

man, you guys are angry. I'm sorry for hurting your feelings. Lol, the internet is serious busines.

 Okay I'll rephrase what I meant regarding M&S, although it 'is' a third party game, it's never going to be a suitable example for any third party to use as a benchmark for potential markets, where to focus developement or that there is a potential market for them to exploit. For a third party looking at Wii sales and deciding where to go next on the console, it's going to be treated as yet another of the Nintendo games dominating the top of the list. Whether it technically is or isn't doesn't matter.

 As for the M&S vs MGS4 thing, I don't think we're in a position to say whether or not one was more profitable. We don't know the developement costs of either, the marketing budgets, how much profit per unit they made, how much Sony helped Konami in paying for the thing and how much SEGA were giving to Nintendo and the Olympics commitee to use their licenses. Without solid figures it's all just guesswork, and doesn't really have any relevence to the majority of PS360 or Wii developement.

Anywho, it's 10 to 3 here now so I'm going to be off the bed soon. If I don't reply I'll be sure to check up on this thread in the morning, I may have another 5 minutes in me though.