Yakuza 2 dropped as low as 200 copies a week before it even hit 600k. Now look at it.

Several points:

Number one, the post I replied to was about the game's Western sales potential in raw numbers. I gave historical data of same. Note that neither Return On Investment nor profits were raised by either of us.

Second, loathe though I am to respect the GAF hivemind's opinion, their sheer volume and variety of posters means they hae access to wide, otherwise unavailable, pools of data. The more respected sales-age members rarely guess about sales figures, and when they are speculating they make that clear. So those figures are likely straight from NPD.

Finally, you highly underestimate what goes into localization. It's not simply a matter of hiring some voice actors to read a few lines and calling it a day; often, that's the cheapest part. Each line, verbal and written, has to be translated, and the text changed. Cultural references which won't click with the audience have to modified, and occasionally symbols have to be removed entirely. All of this costs money, but likely not a million yet.

However, you also have to pay to market the title, organize press releases, go through the time (and therefore cost) of negotiating with retailers about buying the game, the cost of manufacturing and shipping the units, and probably a ton of other things that I'm forgetting. All of this takes a lot of money. And if those copies aren't sold, you've went and lost money. If a measly million was all it took to localize titles, there would be precious few games that WEREN'T localized.

And I would already be playing Fatal Frame IV...

^ the cost of manufacturing dont effect my numbers.

if you want to look at it with all expenses it would be 55,000 x 60 = 3,300,000 worth of revenue to work with.

Incorrect on both fronts, actually.

The cost of shipping/manufacturing, while not a "localization" cost per se, is nonetheless a major factpr in deciding whether to bring a game over or not. You see, it does a company zero good to localize a game, and then not ship it anywhere. Sales become hard to come by that way.

Second, your figures are incomplete. It not only assumes that all units will be sold at full price (they won't), but it ignores the same costs of shipping and manufacturing that you just brushed over. There's a price associated with simply creating your copy, and it comes out of that $60.

There's an additional, larger cost in moving it from the factory in China to the port, loading it from the port to the ship, paying the shippers to sail it across the ocean, unloading it when it arrives, loading it onto a train, moving it to your region, moving it to a truck, and finally having it arrive at the store. Volume helps bring down some of these costs, but each copy still must pay its own way, and that also eats into your $60.

Did I mention that each console manufacturer demands a royalty for the privilege of making a game for their system? I've heard $12 bandied about for a $60 game, so there goes another 1/5th of your money straight off the bat.

Oh yes, and the retailer isn't doing this for free. He demands his own pound of flesh for putting your product on his shelf. Kiss another $12 goodbye.

You're lucky to make half of that $60 yourself. And you STILL haven't accounted for the cost of marketing, or for negotiating with retailers, or...well, you get the point.

Would that it were that simple, but it never is.

Well, they can certainly go the cheap route like they did with Yakuza 2. Keep the cultural references in, and only traslate the text. (there was only English subs)

And of course, little to no advertising.

Well Yakuza 3 may have broke even but how much did they lose on Kenzan? They developed the Yakuza engine for that game & it only sold only 300K. I think if u add them up they end up making a loss.

As for MadWorld, at 150K i'm sure it's at a loss right now as well. Let's see how good the legs are for these 2 games.

PS: It's a good thing Mario is aiding with their finances by helping sell one of their games :D

True on both fronts, but that's rather like being penny-wise and pound-foolish. As I told Max King, even factoring those costs in probably doesn't raise your costs too much, so your profit point probably isn't too much higher than it was before. (You are, however, risking the alienation of the mainstream, since I don't think most folks prefer subbing over dubbing, and few appreciate references that go over their heads. Mind you, with Yakuza it appears that the mainstream is uninterested anyways, so that's no loss here. End sidenote.)

And even without the advertising (again, dumb for most games, apparently not a biggie for Yakuza) you still have some marketing costs: arranging for retailers to stock the game alone is an uphill challenge, and it ain't free either.

On its own, Kenzan was all-but-certain a loss, and likely a big one. But Yakuza 3 is certainly not going to be the last game that uses this engine. But that's no surprise: where in previous generations using middleware was a luxury, this generation it has, literally, become a requirement. I'm having trouble thinking of any big HD game engine that wasn't reused, although I'm sure there are a few. The savings of sharing an engine is no longer a bonus...

Oh, and Madworld? If it's broken even by now, I would be stunned. I also doubt it will have very good legs. I'm guessing No More Heroes-level sales, but that's purely an unsupported opinion.

actualky im very correct on both fronts since my initial number took manufacturing cost into consideration already. every single copy will be sold at full price. i guarantee it.

kenzan was developed for the ps2. lol. i doubt they lost money

My apologies. I'd assumed you were looking for a serious conversation. I stand corrected. Have a good night.