@ Naz - I didn't realise "Troll" was a bannable offense now?

Must be new just in

OT: I don't see the point of this thread, I don't see anyone saying HD games don't bomb, it's just the majority of 3rd party games do much better on PS360 than Wii 3rd party games ..

Not sure where you got that number but you have to know it is bollocks.

Games like Armored Core 4, Disgaea 3, any Dynasty Warrior this gen for example, didn't cost 18 million$ to develop.........

Heck Yakuza 3 sold less than 400k in Japan and Sega claimed they broke even.... 

It is I was banned the other day for saying it. What happened to the guy I called a troll? He got banned for trolling.

OT: SPECTACULAR flops courtesy of Gamecock. The only place I saw this discussed was in the depths of GameFAQs. Go figure.

First of all just like Epic didn't factor the development of unreal 3 engine in the gears tally, Monolith doesn't have to do so as well. They used the exact same engine for FEAR 1, FEAR 2, Condemend 1 and 2... as well as licenced it out to other devs. They also stated they re-used some of the same textures for all 4 games.

Secodly, you seem to be stating that most of the videogame industry is completely oblivious to how to use resources which they are given when making a game. Game dev costs like 30 mil for halo 3 and 60 mil for COD:mw2 come out and suddenly every game is a 20 mil dollar game. For ever development team that consists of enough people to fill a soccer stadium and is working on a big franchise...there are 10 smaller, 40 - 80 people dev teams which know what return on investment they will get for the game they are developing.

Its true that there are bombs on the HD side...Games like Alone in the Dark, LAir, Too Human... But you can't lump games based on sales and say "a game sold 600K hence its a fflop." Like Hawk was made in Korea by some no name dev team, and then published by Ubisoft with very little to no advertising. 800K should be enough for everyone involved to see a profit.

Also do you honestly think a game like Bayonetta will not make money for Sega and platnum games unless it sells over a million?  Those guys have been in the industry for god knows how long...and I guarantee you, the first thing they learned is how to get paid, Trust me, when you've a veteran in the industry like that, you know the shortcuts to game development which will get you most ROI,

You're certainly correct about Disgaea, at least (I can't speak for the others), but regarding Yakuza 3:

1) Sega's claim was based on shipped numbers, and

2) I recall that this site had its figures at just under 500k at the time, not 400k. That is less than the 800k figure that Naznatips provided, though.

 Gears 2 had other savings expenses as well: I recall that they outsourced an unprecedented amount of labor to China, for instance (Gamasutra members were miffed about that), which brings down the game's cost by a lot.

The simple fact is that Gears 2 is pretty anamalous (sic) as far as these things go: when even a Tim Schaefer game had a budget northwards of about $17 million (before they asked EA for even more, about $6 million I think) it's indicative that HD does not come cheaply.

As to Bayonetta, you may wish to select another example. If ever there was a studio that COULDN'T make money...

Your overall point is well taken though: the picture is more nuanced than it's presented here. I think you're lowballing it, and I do think you should select better examples.

I highly doubt that Naruto: Broken Bond flopped. The 1st only reached .32 million copies sold. So why would the devs make another exclusive if their first did that bad?

Also my copy of Armored Core For Answers has a Ubisoft logo on the front. No Sega >.>

I think the video game industry is currently suffering from the same problems our entire economy suffers from. Over expectations and unsustainable growth. A great example of this is EA. If EA were to focus on just core titles they would make money every year, they wouldn't have nearly the number of employees but they would make money. But that's not enough in this world today, you can't just make money you have to make more money than you did last quarter, and at a higher rate, other wise an analysts publishes a report that your company is failing and every major brokerage house dumps your stock or worse they short it till your bankrupt. Of course all that public money is good, at least for the board and the top execs it is, they still make millions while the middle guys get dumped on.


It's a joke, I say go private, make games, make a profit, share the success with your employees, and never worry about having to increase your profit margin ever again.

That's what Valve does.  It's really a shame there aren't more of them out there, but we can't all be Microsoft millionaires :(

(edit: he's one of those guys who made a ton in the 90s when Microsoft exploded financially, quit and started making games)

Just one thing. You don't need a console to be an HD gamer.

well, most of those games sucked