In NA games are usually $60 right? Add the EU where games are discounted from the start (at least here in the UK) and assume for every first party game Sony get $15 for every copy sold.

My A-level maths tells me $15 x 1000000 sales = $15 million

No idea if that is close to break even point for games with high production value, my guess is that is not the case. Using the "GTA IV cost $100 million to make" example, would at least expect GT5 to be near that number.

The title length limit does not allow "do you think that the first and second party studios which are not breaking even on PS3 games will continue to support the PS3?"

Those being suckered into thinking Team ICO make good games are silly.

You're treading on thin ice.  And Shadow of the Colossus came close to two million, selling 750k in the US and over 200k in Japan.  It probably sold another 700k in Europe, though we don't have the data.  Combine that with the movie tie-in from Reign Over Me, and the title was probably quite profitable.

Sony's first party titles are doing fine.  LittleBigPlanet is probably the most profitable title they've made in years, given the fact that the team never consisted of more than 37 people, and given the current (and ongoing) sales of the title.  Uncharted, Resistance, Resistance 2, Ratchet & Clank, and others have all also made a profit, if not a rather nice profit.  Hell, even Killzone 2 probably didn't need to sell 1.5 million to break even, yet all these titles have broken that number and then some, and thus should be quite profitable.  Killzone 2 should end up over 3 million lifetime, and should also be rather profitable.

The titles that Sony has probably lost money on this generation are Lair, Genji, Folkore, F1: Championship Racing, and their NBA series.  You claim they will start shutting down or selling off studios, but they have already begun breaking ties with the developers that aren't making them a profit.  They have ended their relationship with Factor 5, and they canceled their plans for a sequel to Foklore with Game Republic, and might never work with the studio again outside of PSN titles, thus making another Genji unlikely.  They have also lost the F1 license, so we know that series won't continue.  The only thing left standing is the NBA series.

And even if some of these studios weren't making a profit, they'd probably just have the studios begin workign on more marketable IPs, rather than outright closing them.  For exmple, Sucker Punch's InFamous will most likely outsell every Sly Cooper title they've made.  It is also rumored that Sony Liverpool, the guys behind Wipeout and F1, are working on a third person action title.

you are death to me =( such an horrible comment.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/uncharted-sequel-costing-usd-20-million

awesome!!!!!!!!!. i want.

if anything I think Sony will be expanding their First Party development studios by the end of this gen

They usually do that at the end of each generation.  Throughout the generation, they form second party contacts and see what studios are good and whatnot throughout the gen, then they often buy said studios at the end of the generation, after they have also built up a nice cash reserve from the previous gen.  They formed Team ICO and bought Psygonosis (now Sony Liverpool) and Naughty Dog at the end of the ps1 gen, and they bought Zipper Interactive, Geurrilla Games, and Evolution Studios at the end of last gen.  I expect Media Molcule to get picked up in a couple of years (unless they decide to go the route of Insomniac) and maybe 1-2 other studios, possibly ones we don't even know they're working with at the moment, much like how nobody had ever heard of Media Molecule before March of 2007.

There is no way Sony will stop their first / second party support. Sony have gone on record saying that they will not be funding third party exclusives and that third party exclusives are dead (whether they mean that or not is any one's guess). If they stop making as many first/second party games, it'd practically have no exclusives left.