Microsoft wants to buy.....EA?

[Wrath of Dagon]

I think that was shipped to retailers, not sold. If ME did exctremely well, they'd announce the totals, which they didn't.

[alanschu]

I imagine shipped to retailers means that MS has gotten their money.

 

The VGCharts could be lower due to it being POS sales.

 

 

There's no shortage of sources that mention over a million sales for Mass Effect within its first month.

 

 

 

A quote from: http://nexgenwars.com/gaming-news/general/...-3-at-5-million which quotes someone from Microsoft:

 

Mass Effect which has sold more than a million copies in less than three weeks,

Edited September 29, 2009 by alanschu

[Zoraptor]

MS' figure was 1.6m copies shipped, in the first six weeks.

 

Looking just at revenue, if a game sells for $60 and they sell a million copies, that's $60 million in revenue.

 

I don't know how much development costs are for games now-a-days though so I can't comment how much of that would be pure profit, and there will be markups for the distribution of the game, so obviously EA won't make anywhere near $60 per copy of the game sold.

They don't make anything like $60 revenue a copy- basic, and approximate breakdown $60 - retailer cut ->~$30 - licensor (console manufacturer) cut ->~$20 revenue shared in some manner between publisher and developer. There's also publisher cuts if you're working for a third party publisher (MS in this case) which depends on the contract- as I understand it, the publisher may take a near 100% cut until it has recovered its costs/ minimal sales target has been met, though this is less likely in this case as Bioware had a fair bit of clout itself and MS really wanted ME for the 360.

 

Typical costs for a genuinely AAA title start at around $20 million, plus more if it's marketed extensively, generally borne primarily by the publisher. Something like GTA4 supposedly cost more than $100 million, though ME would not have been near that league, cost wise. Basic estimate is that for a AAA game which sells 2 million copies there's roughly $20 million in profit to distribute.

 

OTOH Bioware would likely have been paid up front by MS during development and for platform exclusivity, so would not have been that dependent on sales numbers, though this does not particularly help EA's value as it would have (presumably) been received prior to its bioware purchase.

 

NB. I'd stress again, the figures used are ballpark and approximate and will vary with title/ developer/ publisher and contract; don't take them as having any absolute truth or accuracy.

Edited September 30, 2009 by Zoraptor

[alanschu]

They don't make anything like $60 revenue a copy

 

Yes I know.

 

 

so obviously EA won't make anywhere near $60 per copy of the game sold.

 

But hey, thanks for breaking it all down for me.

 

Furthermore, I was talking about future sales for a Mass Effect 2. It's irrelevant for you to go into any detail about the breakdown of profit from Mass Effect to Microsoft. I merely pointed out sales figures for the original Mass Effect, as they can give an indication of possible success for the sequel. (And even then it's not even a guarantee...it only showed that the game was popular).

Edited September 30, 2009 by alanschu