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Sony Corporation (SNE)
Worldwide Studio Chief Recalls the Humble Underdog Years
Worldwide Studio Chief Recalls the Humble Underdog Years
VentureBeat - July 30, 2008
Submitted by zukaus (4) at 3:13PM PST on July 30, 2008
Earlier this year, Shu Yoshida became president of Sony's worldwide game development studios. VentureBeat has caught up with Yoshida at the recent E3 conference in Los Angeles. He praised his rivals and talked about how Sony is an underdog again.
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5zukaus posted on Sony Corporation (SNE) at 3:17PM PST on July 30, 2008. RE: Worldwide Studio Chief Recalls the Humble Underdog YearsSome interesting quotes on the cost of making PS3 games here...
VB: Is game development getting more expensive?
SY: Very much so. That’s why we are having fun with PSN titles. The big disk-based titles are so much work. In the past, when we sold a million units of any game, that was great. But now a million is the breakeven point in disk games. It’s a very stressful business these days. It’s much more fun working on small titles on PSN on less than $1 million budgets. As any producer would do, we look at concepts and decide whether titles are in too small a niche for the Blu-ray disk games (which are far deeper than the casual fare on the PlayStation Network.)
But for PSN, we can proceed.
VB: What is the minimum a game has to sell these days?
SY: Disk-based games? I would say a million. If you spend $20 million to $30 million, with marketing investment, margins of $35 or $40 on a $60 game, then the recoup point is really high. It depends on the platform. For PSN games, it is $2 million tops. That is a more relaxing experience.[ Oracle ] [ Level 30 ] [ Rank: 4 ]bids
14zukaus posted on Sony Corporation (SNE) at 3:13PM PST on July 30, 2008. Article: Worldwide Studio Chief Recalls the Humble Underdog Years
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It is quite revealing that he mentioned $20 - 30 Million as if that is the "standard" figure for game development.
Margin of $35 - $40, is that first party game margin, or third party game margin ? I suspect that it is first party game margin, since the person talking is head of Sony first party studio, but confirmation from other are needed/welcomed.
Other interesting tidbit : Sony has 2,500 developers, while Nintendo have only 3,000 employee (developer + back office staff, like finance, marketing, secretary etc). If we assume that Nintendo only have 2,000 developer (66% of employee are developer), it drive home how efficient Nintendo's organization is.