Well, I don't really track PC data too closely anymore since I'm doing only console games. However, 250K units on a console would usually be a failure. The only reason you can get away with such small sales on the PC is the lower cost of PC titles (don't have to pay Sony royalties and don't need special dev kits for example). AAA console games are going to hope to sell 500K units or more.
In total, The Sims (series) has probably sold over 10 million units by now (I've stopped counting). Blizzard and Id games sell several million units each, too. I don't think any major publisher would even start a PC game project if they didn't hope for more than 250K units. Of course, you can do titles for smaller budgets, but it's unlikely to happen at a major company like Lucas. A problem with the games industry right now is that the top 25 games each year make a majority of the money. #1 - #5 often selling millions of units. The rest of the top 25 selling several hundred thousand. Many of the rest often lose money. This is turning the games industry into a hit-driven market (like the movie industry). The trend is to see less games being made and hoping for more profit on each. EA is making fewer games but more revenue: 2000 = 68 SKUS with $1.3B in revenue, 2002 = 58 SKUs with $2.5B Hugh -----Original Message----- From: Jim Leonard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 6:20 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [SWCollect] Sam & Max II Hugh Falk wrote: > (generously) $20 per unit profit, the need to sell 250,000 units to break > even. This would require it to be a moderate success in the PC realm. That is depressing. Is that standard across the industry right now? I can't think of many titles selling 250,000 units in today's market that aren't The Sims or Barbie's Pet Rescue. -- Jim Leonard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.oldskool.org/ Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/ Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent to you because you are currently subscribed to the swcollect mailing list. To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of 'unsubscribe swcollect' Archives are available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
