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Reggie - Wii Channels, dev costs & last week being their biggest sales week ever
- Thread starter ziran
- Start date
Version 3.0
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The Wii launched Nov 18th, I believe. That gives it just 8 days of NPD tracking its first November. They sold 476k that 'month'. But how much was day 1, and how much the following week? Does day 1 'count' as its own week?
Its highest average week based on NPD monthly reporting since then was last month at 130k.
If they have the supply, it'll very easily do double or even triple that in November.
...in other words, these stupid PR numbers don't tell us a damn thing. As usual, they'll sell whatever they shipped.
Its highest average week based on NPD monthly reporting since then was last month at 130k.
If they have the supply, it'll very easily do double or even triple that in November.
...in other words, these stupid PR numbers don't tell us a damn thing. As usual, they'll sell whatever they shipped.
laserbeam said:
a two million unit November? or do we need to be more careful how we're parsing that statement...
on the channel front it seems that they've only hinted at what is possible, though it seems that nintendo isn't going where they need to go if they were legitimately interested in making a set-top box (photo channel changes come to mind)...
Gahiggidy said:
Extra time and resources it takes to come up with a totally different game than the other 3 platforms. Everything from the graphics to the way the game plays because of the controller has to be built ground up for the Wii, and they've got no way to spread the risk around because the Wii is such a unique platform.
The bigs like EA and Activision do it by porting over PS2 versions - see Tiger Woods. They don't have to budget anything for graphics, and they can spend a little money working on a control scheme.
Yeah, they sound like a difficult, exacting company to work with.Attack You said:
Oh yeah, you're right, discussing Wii becoming a set top box is pointless in the sense there is nothing concrete on the table from Nintendo to suggest this direction. However, this is just a forum, i.e. the perfect place to discuss, speculate and (over) analyse this kind of thingMudhoney said:
IIRC Reggie said they would have at least double what was available last year, so ~1 million for Nov and ~1.2 million for Dec, but that could change.rage1973 said:
For the Nintendo systems I think Reggie's talking about internally developed titles in these costs, with no licensing fees. So, Wii titles could come in over $10 million, iirc Ubisoft said Red Steel cost $12 million.Luckyman said:
I took it to mean the biggest total revenue across all products the company has had in a single week, but you're right, it's not clear.JoshuaJSlone said:
Version 3.0
Member
bill0527 said:
Not hard to sell a million? Tell that to 90+% of games that don't come close. And no, not all of them suck.
But these cost and ROI numbers are BS anyway. There was another thread about it, but here are a few highlights: not all games cost that much, not all of them need to sell that much, development costs get spread over multiple games and versions of games, etc.
If those numbers were true, the videogame industry would be dead.
krypt0nian
Banned
Gahiggidy said:
The vast interstellar distances between wii and 360/PS3 don't compare to the small walk across the yard that was the PS2 to xbox gap. But you know that.
Unless you're talking last gen looking content like GH3.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Xbox was November 15Leondexter said:
PS3 was November 17
GCN was November 18
Wii was November 19
X360 was November 22
so it does seem its first NPD counted as one full Sunday-Saturday week.
Pretty much. Still vague.
Lowering the ceiling on technical possibilities, mostly. Reusing old equipment/tools. Though I have no doubt Reggie is selectively using numbers to make Wii seem even cheaper.Acosta said:
Even the PS1 FFs got into the dozens of millions.Xzbeat said:
papelnabangka
Member
They could also be just talking about the YTD record.botticus said:
game-buying habits of wii owners are pretty hard to figure out right now?felipeko said:
also: making great controls is a pretty big task that's been done very few times so far. with a standard pad, you can benefit from years and years of other people's mistakes.
this is a risky gen all around for devs/pubs.
ComputerNerd
Banned
bill0527 said:
But the Wii is low risk. If they want to spread it, they can spread it to the PS2. But the Wii in and of itself is a low risk platform.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
The 20-50 million dollar budgets that Reggie is stating sounds about right. Have you seen how much bigger game teams are getting? A team of 50 people is around 4-5 million a year in just salaries and benefits (I'm averaging out salaries here to around 70k a head - see Gamasutra's salary survey for more specifics - and estimating about another 12k a head for benefits but this can go a lot higher depending on what a company will pay for).
Then there's publisher support for marketing, sales, QA, etc - the people actively working on a project will be billing to that budget. That's probably another 2-3 mil a year. So in terms of just headcount, in 2 years you already hit the 10 million mark.
Throw in equipment costs for PCs, general IT support, developer equipment, and vendor support. We haven't even touched on overhead for paying the basic stuff like rent for the office a dev team is leasing or the electric bill and what not. 20+ million dollar budgets shouldn't be that surprising. Which is why companies want to release these high-budget games over multiple platforms - it can increase costs by quite a bit, but you're more likely to at least break even as you have a bigger userbase to try and cover sales.
So for a Wii developed game to cost between 5 - 10 million, you'd have to have a team size below 25 people, a development schedule less than 2 years, and not go totally crazy on marketing costs. You can probably get away with this on the other platforms as well, but you'll have much higher development costs due to the difference in equipment cost.
Then there's publisher support for marketing, sales, QA, etc - the people actively working on a project will be billing to that budget. That's probably another 2-3 mil a year. So in terms of just headcount, in 2 years you already hit the 10 million mark.
Throw in equipment costs for PCs, general IT support, developer equipment, and vendor support. We haven't even touched on overhead for paying the basic stuff like rent for the office a dev team is leasing or the electric bill and what not. 20+ million dollar budgets shouldn't be that surprising. Which is why companies want to release these high-budget games over multiple platforms - it can increase costs by quite a bit, but you're more likely to at least break even as you have a bigger userbase to try and cover sales.
So for a Wii developed game to cost between 5 - 10 million, you'd have to have a team size below 25 people, a development schedule less than 2 years, and not go totally crazy on marketing costs. You can probably get away with this on the other platforms as well, but you'll have much higher development costs due to the difference in equipment cost.
worldwide they've been quoting the 1.8million/month for a few months now. i believe they said ten days on the boat from china to north america, and no more than a few days extra for trucking... even assuming that there was no stock saved up for rabid buy season, why wouldn't a minimum 1.8units/month worldwide be expected for the next while?CrisKre said:
maynerd said:
Stop at Targets on Tuesday. I've done this three or four times and they've had Wiis. My sister also got a Wii at Target a couple Tuesday ago.
Actually stopped today and they had 6 (5 if you count the one they sold while I was there.) Was tempted to purchase it and Mario Galaxy and then ebay it for nice profits before Christmas. But I didn't feel like risking an ebay chargeback for such a small net profit (200?). My true feelings came through today. I just don't want another one. I'll eventually borrow a Wii and play Galaxy that way.
ComputerNerd
Banned
1-D_FTW said:
You can Craigslist Wii's.
Bluemercury
Member
bill0527 said:
Well it seems its their loss, giving the wii basket is full of golden eggs....
JoshuaJSlone said:
I was being sarcastic more than other thing. Nintendo is making more money than anyone putting less investment effort than its rivals. Yes, this is business and all that but I don´t find that "right" in my book (let me stress my).
But that is my vision as a gamer that would have gladly payed 400 or 500 $ for a Nintendo console in the same league that PS3 and 360. It´s obvious I´m part of a minority, so my opinion is worthless.
Acosta said:
That's highly arguable. Their business model allows for low cost development. As a result third parties trying to catch up and fill their catalogs with Wii software in time for the annual shareholders meeting are having to put a lot of half assed efforts out. It's not Nintendo's problem.
They took the risk, and are being rewarded for it. Wii could have bombed as badly as the Dreamcast. In fact, it shares a lot in common with the Dreamcast.
Bluemercury
Member
Acosta said:
They have to get closer to the other two next time.....that's for sure, they should concentrate in the wiimote next....though....
krypt0nian
Banned
Zer0 said:
You forgot to call it a vast interstellar distance.