Surely not, but it was in developement for years...

Bionic Commando budget was 20mln$ so they lost a lot. if Day1 studios is making movie games then we can assume that 20mln is a lower end of average hd game budget.
The Source i highly doubt those numbers - especially ps360 ones. if game like Bionic Commando have 20mln budget, GTA4 100mln and there's 450-500 dev teams working on a single games(Assassins Creed 2 and Killzone 2) i doubt those numbers.
i would say that first generation 360 multiplatform games(like Burnout 3 or Most Wanted) had 8-10mln budget because many assets were taken from last gen versions. first gen 360 exclusive had probably 15-18mln$ dev budget. now average ps360 multiplatform game have probably 20-25mln$ budget with biggest projects like Assassins Creed 2, Killzone 2, RE5 and GT5 having 45+mln$ dev budgets. if ps360 games are flop selling 1mln copies(Shaun White) then you know that development costs are high.

Ubisoft stated in 2007 that their average ds games have 3mln$ budget and average wii game have 5-6mln$ budget(but those are for whole projects so development and advertisment).

but killzone has sold merely 1.6 mill units,maybe thats not a huge hit

If this is true, then how on earth do the majority of the companies lose money?

The Ps3 and Wii have the lowest % of titles that has sold this amount, yet 143 of the 305 tracked titles have sold over 240K.

On Wii it is 222 out of 538.

That's 41.2% and 46.8%. Seeing as a title that sells over the threshold is likely to double, triple, quarduple, or perhaps even more, that number, it seems odd for this to be the number.

Firstly, please learn to type without all manner of annoying shortcuts. I find "u" and "plz" particularly annoying. You have a keyboard, it's not like you're typing with a Sixaxis (if you were, you wouldn't have an enter key).

1) Anything from $5-15 million for a cheap game, but expensive ones can go as high as $100 million (GTA IV)

2) Free advertising, you usually get money from the company for consoles. And you picked very odd examples, because Microsoft has a contract for Gears of War, and even stranger, Sony OWNS and DEVELOPS Killzone 2... You also spend less on development. As for PC, firstly, BioShock isn't a PC exclusive in any way, shape or form- it's on PS3 and 360. And developing for PC is generally easier, and you have a higher install base because PC owners >>>>>>> console owners (in number). Many smallish studios, like Valve, choose to do this (although they sometimes port to 360 since the architecture is so similar)

3) a) A hell of a lot. At full price, publisher gets something like $25 per game. 11 million = $275 million.

b) A hell of a lot. Publisher + console owner gets something like $30. So, 1.6 million * 30 = $48 million. Less than World at War, yes, but it's still selling, and it's on one platform. World at War undoubtedly made more profit, though.

4) Oh, dear. You'll have to define flop, because some people think LBP is a flop with well over 2 million sold. If a game sells, say, 300k, and the publisher gets $25 per sale, that's $7.5 million. Which, depending on the game, may make a profit. If the game makes it to a million, with say 600k at full price and 400k at Greatest Hits, that's $15 million for the full price and, say, $6 million for the Greatest Hits, or $21 million. Enough to make a profit, on most games. So not a lot of high profile games lose money, I don't think.

Is Stranglehold a top title? Cause ist costed 30M$ to create...

@ Kantor: Little Big Planet is a definately flop! How do I know?! When I took the sackboy home with me he was limp!!!

Yoo hoo, Kantor! Retailers don't get a significant retail margin on new release high margin titles because they sell so quickly they hardly take up retail space. Whilst games on the Wii and games selling over a longer period of time do infact have a higher retail margin IIRC.

So I would say that the figures you are given reflect the average price given to publishers over the lifetime of the titles shelflife which reflects price cuts etc. The initial margin I believe is something like $12 on a $60 title and the remainder in shipping etc costs $8 or less which gives Sony a nice $40 in the hand for your day one Killzone 2 purchase (The game sucks, you're playing Haze instead so admit it!!) Advertising is funny so I won't try and work that one out.

Squilliam said: @ Kantor: Little Big Planet is a definately flop! How do I know?! When I took the sackboy home with me he was limp!!! Yoo hoo, Kantor! Retailers don't get a significant retail margin on new release high margin titles because they sell so quickly they hardly take up retail space. Whilst games on the Wii and games selling over a longer period of time do infact have a higher retail margin IIRC. So I would say that the figures you are given reflect the average price given to publishers over the lifetime of the titles shelflife which reflects price cuts etc. The initial margin I believe is something like $12 on a $60 title and the remainder in shipping etc costs $8 or less which gives Sony a nice $40 in the hand for your day one Killzone 2 purchase (The game sucks, you're playing Haze instead so admit it!!) Advertising is funny so I won't try and work that one out.

TheSource disagrees with you, and he has tables! And you can't cite a source, because he is The Source, and all sources answer to him!

You cannot fight the power of tables.

@TheSource
Those break-even numbers look so low... But again your 5-10M budget for ps3/360 games is way lower than what nowadays pass as norm for what I know.
And surely there's millions to be spent in advertising on top of the development cost, and that must be covered for the publisher to break even? (I'm supposing that developers have been paid upfront here)

1. Crysis and Bioshock n Half LIFE 2 (initially) were a pc exclusive,Bioshock sold over a million,HL2 over 4 million,Crysis maybe not(arguebally the game was downloaded the most,played least,some say no one buyed it though they tried it )
So how well they made money for its makers?
2. For a game priced at $40..wat goes to publisher,what goes to Developer n what part goes to shop/seller?
lets have an example of Call of Duty 4.
13 million worldwide,lets assume avg price $40-$50
therfore total money made 13X40=$520- $600 milion worldwide
then how much money Activision made,how much Infinity ward and rest for shopkeeper.
3. if developing for either console or PC was expensive then how come all Call of Duty games are made for ever machine that can run a game( Pc,X360,PS3 even DS n Wii) while some great Titles are restricted to one console only?

Please clarify my doubts,Please..Thanks in advance