eh its possible but no i don't think its going to ganer them more profit. Especially once the live and psn transactions come for the DLC maps. They will make a killing off of that.

Wait wait but... if "dollar for dollar" the Wii is more profitable, then of course the publishers should make Call of Duty 5, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5, and sell all of them to the user for the big bucks! See the logic? spend same money, charge $250 instead of $60. Genious.

People love a popular series. Why not all at once?

Viva la Wii!

I know you're banned, but fear of what?  That developers might focus more on the Wii than the ps3/360 for games like this?

Keep in mind that the Wii version was a port. Had the 360/ps3 versions never been made,  the Wii version wouldn't have cost so little to make, and thus wouldn't have been as profitable.  And, as Twroo said, the costs of portions of development that aren't specific to any version would've likely been shrared between all versions.

And I don't see how a game that has barely broken 1.3 million between two platforms comes anywhere close to 8 million in terms of profit, especially with the $10 premium on "HD" games.

But I do agree with Bigjon that the likely profits are more than enough to make a port worth it, and those profits should only go up as the install base rises.

Bad math. I'm also not getting the 1.34 million SD units...Where did they come from? I see the Wii at 880k.

Currently, we get the following numbers:

X360: 4,800,000 units
PS3: 2,850,000 units
Wii: 880,000 units

Now, the next question is development costs, porting, and the whole gambit of how to look at that. It's a huge mess of an argument, really, given the fact that the costs should have been spread out for all the systems. But to be nice, I'm splitting costs 40/40/20...80% for the HD systems, and 20% for the Wii. Assuming a $30 million budget, that puts it @ $12m for the HD-twins, and $6m for the Wii.

Next, we go to profit per sale. Since there's a $10 surcharge on the HD versions, it should translate to roughly $6 more for the development costs.

Using typical figures we've seen around the industry, retail costs around $10/disc, while Nintendo charges another $10, Sony around ~$7, and MS around $7 as well.

So a revenue breakdown would look like:
X360/PS3: $40/disc
Wii: $30/disc

So:
X360: $192,000,000 Revenue to Developer
PS3: $114,000,000 Revenue to Developer
Wii: $26,400,000 Revenue to Developer

Now take out development costs:

X360: $180,000,000 Profit to Developer
PS3: $102,000,000 Profit to Developer
Wii: $20,400,000 Profit to Developer

Given the fact that the numbers point to a lead of around 14:1 in terms of revenue of HD vs. the Wii....I think that it's safe to say which version(s) were more profitable. You can't compare a system that has sold about 3x less than the PS3 version AND has lower earnings per disc, and say it made more money. Even if the $30m was split entirely between the 360/PS3, it doesn't favor the Wii.

Overall, it was worth it to make the Wii version. But given the abundant sales of the PS3 and X360 versions....They certainly did better, despite higher costs to develop.

Okay, I've been doing some math.  My numbers are probably a bit off, but I figure they're close.

Let's say for every Wii game sold at $50, Nintendo gets $15 and retailers get $8 (or 15%, based on the discount I get at GameStop).

That would mean Activision would get ~$27 per copy sold at $50.  The ps2 version goes for $40, so they'd get even less on that one.

So that would be 1.34 million x 27, which would be approximately 36.2 million.

Now let's say for the ps3/360 versions of the game, Sony/MS get $16, and retailers get $9.  That would mean Activision gets ~ $35 per game sold.  7.6 million x 35 = 266 million.

Even if the various versions of the game cost $50 million (unlikely, given the already existing engine and such), and ALL costs were attributed to the ps3/360 versions, while no costs were attributed to the ps2/Wii versions, the ps3/360 version would come out ahead by almost $200 million.

And that's NOT taking into account the $40 pricetag of the ps2 version, nor the sales of the PC version, which have probably broken a million, if not two million.  Including these things, the "HD" version would be well over $200 million ahead.

LOL @ 2 mod posts above

Thats great. Different math...same conclusion.

The glaring problem is that no pro-Wii owner bothered with math...Which is why this thread sucks.

There are about 100 different mathematical arguments you can make on variable profit rates, as well as development estimates. No matter which one you use, within reason, the HD twins come out well ahead of the Wii, or all SD versions. Heck, the PS3 version alone should have been able to bankroll the entire development. World @ War used the CoD4 engine, so costs CANNOT go that high. It should have cost around $20m for the initial HD version + PS3 port + SD downgrade port + Wii port + PS2 port. 

There are no arguments you can use that make the Wii look superior. None. That's why psrock, claude, or any others failed to bother using math to prove their point.

Again, that's not to say the Wii version was a 'failure' - You can prove that, under most formulas, that the Wii version has already broke a profit, thus justifying the SD port + Wii development. However, it's totally asinine to believe the Wii version was more profitable. It was not. Unless the HD versions stop selling tomorrow, and the Wii version is bundled with every Wii sold in the West, it will not be more successful.

I agree with this........and disagree with everything else, especially your poor title.

The PC version probably could've covered the entire operation.  Steam's margins are probably quite low, far lower than any B&M store, at least.

Is there any hard data on what Steam charges per game? I'd assume 30% ala PSN or XBLA. That'd be a nice $35 profit per $50 copy...Which is pretty good.