How Many Copies Does A WiiWare Game Need To Sell?

By Luke Plunkett, 4:30 AM on Mon Apr 20 2009, 19,899 views (Edit post, Set to draft, Slurp)

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Last week, Gamasutra heard whispers about Nintendo placing sales criteria on WiiWare games. If developers didn't reach them, they wouldn't get paid. Well, we now know just how many they need to sell.

Courtesy of a developer "familiar" with the subject, these are the targets a WiiWare game has to meet before the creators start seeing profits (and if/when they do, what that profit breakdown is).

North America

If game is over 16MB - 6,000 units
If game is under 16MB - 4,000 units

Europe

If game is over 16MB - 3,000 units
If game is under 16MB - 2,000 units

Once those goals are met, the developer starts seeing a return (which is based upon every sale, not just those made once the target is reached). And that return is split 65/35 between the developers/Nintendo.

Games have two years to hit their mark. If they haven't hit it by then, sorry, no dice.

Interesting that games are divided according to size, which seems pretty arbitrary. On the bright side, though, that profit split is a healthy one, particularly if a small team is able to create a cheap game that beats the sales targets.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5219100/how-many-copies-does-a-wiiware-game-need-to-sell

I didn't hear the "years to hit the mark part".

If that is true, and Nintendo allows devs 1-2 years to push 6k-10k downloads on WiiWare, with 65/35 profit split..........devs cannot complain at all.

Based on those numbers, developers have *nothing* to complain about. They should be hitting those on launch month/qrt really...

My biggest fear for WiiWare, is a flood of crap being released (ala AppStore) - this will prevent something like that happening.

Seems reasonable... If you don't hit those numbers on a userbase like the Wii.. (I know that not everyone is online but still..) well then you have made a nice little turd..

Wow nice split, I was expecting something in favour of Nintendo.

If they can't sell that "many" copies then they don't deserve any money since the game can't be nothing but crap.

well developer of Eternity Child said that almost every wiiware project have 50-100k $ budget so i think it may be right.

How much in $ terms is a WiiWare game in America to buy?

Doesn't seem unreasonable for Nintendo's time/resources to publish the game and the advertising WiiWare games receive.

I wonder what PSN/XBL's conditions are?

I know it's just one example but World of Goo was allegedly made on $10000.