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Forums - Sales - Sega talks about their actual state. Core games at risk

alfredofroylan on 24 March 2009

Oh, it's the opposite from the crazy guy on Gametrailers

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blogs/anoop/2009/03/24/masano_maeda_nikkei_interview/

According to Maeda, the 2008 Christmas season made Sega and other publishers think that continuing to do things the current way would be unacceptable. This was true for both the domestic and overseas markets. Domestically, he believes many publishers have been forced to create their business plans with little confidence that the market will expand. Overseas, although the market is expanding, many companies are seeing red.

How much for a core game?

What's causing concern, however, is development targeting core gamers. Developing action games and role playing games and so forth for core gamers costs 30 million to 40 million dollars when taking into account development, marketing and licensing. Titles that end up as hits sell extremely well, but there are many titles that end up not selling at all. Adding it all up, and you get to a pattern of losses, where development costs are not recovered.

Maeda believes that companies need to have one pillar of their business strategy be based around casual games, which sell well but don't cost a lot to develop. He mentioned Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games in this context, noting that the title sold 5 million in 2008 alone, for a total of 10 million units. Overseas sales of games like this supported Sega, he said. Although he feels Sega is already strong in this area, Maeda said that In the future, he'd like to further strengthen the company's casual games business.

But Yakuza sold a lot ... right?

Around half of Sega's Japanese development staff works on overseas titles like Sonic, Mario & Sonic, and Super Monkey Ball. This, he describes, is extremely efficient. The remaining half works on games like Yakuza (Ryu ga Gotoku), the Tsukurou (Let's Make a Pro Baseball Team, etc.) series, and the Phantasy Star series. These teams are being asked to try making titles for overseas markets.

Oh boy..... BTW if you see a copy of Valkyria Chronicles buy it please.



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Avinash_Tyagi on 24 March 2009

Of course, there's more money to be made in the wider market and with costs increasing on the niche "hardcore" games, there's little reason to make a game for a market where the risk is greater and the returns less



 

Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!!  Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)

twingo on 24 March 2009

Yay more cheepo crap.

Hey sega retards how about release Yakuza in NA and Europe duhhhhhhhh.



badgenome on 24 March 2009

I'm guessing Valkyria Chronicles didn't make a profit, then.



Khuutra on 24 March 2009
badgenome said:
I'm guessing Valkyria Chronicles didn't make a profit, then.

I'm guessing you're probably right.

The worst part here is that there are methods by which one can make core gameplay values fit around a much cheaper development philosophy.



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alfredofroylan on 24 March 2009
twingo said:
Yay more cheepo crap.

Hey sega retards how about release Yakuza in NA and Europe duhhhhhhhh.

If you buy it, it'll come, Have you seen the sales of Yakuza on NA and Others?

 



theRepublic on 24 March 2009
Khuutra said:
badgenome said:
I'm guessing Valkyria Chronicles didn't make a profit, then.

I'm guessing you're probably right.

The worst part here is that there are methods by which one can make core gameplay values fit around a much cheaper development philosophy.

What is your solution?

The obvious answer to me is to take the graphics down a notch.  The industry has come too far, too fast and the business model is not there to back it up.

However, I'm not sure that would be acceptable to those gamers spoiled by the beatiful, but mostly money losing games on the 360 and PS3 right now.



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Gamerace on 24 March 2009

This would certainly seem to support Nintendo's Blue Ocean strategy.

But I wish these developers would get their heads out of their arses and realize that a fully developed AAA game for the casual market or say woman's market could reap even greater rewards than spending that on the overcrowded core market.



 

Undying on 24 March 2009

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Khuutra on 24 March 2009
theRepublic said:
Khuutra said:
badgenome said:
I'm guessing Valkyria Chronicles didn't make a profit, then.

I'm guessing you're probably right.

The worst part here is that there are methods by which one can make core gameplay values fit around a much cheaper development philosophy.

What is your solution?

The obvious answer to me is to take the graphics down a notch.  The industry has come too far, too fast and the business model is not there to back it up.

However, I'm not sure that would be acceptable to those gamers spoiled by the beatiful, but mostly money losing games on the 360 and PS3 right now.

That is exactly my conclusion. Something has to give, and graphics are the least cost effective part of that equation. Presentation has to give out first, because if you cut costs in other areas then a game begins to be fundamentally broken.

Frnakly, the fact that it wouldn't be acceptable to some gamers is irrelevant. That business model simply is not making enough money to justify catering to that demograhic.