Big Time Games Producer Gives Shocking Insider Info On Wii

[ShadiWulf]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/46982.html

Pete Wanat:

Credits include: Scarface - Chronicles of Riddick - Wanted.

What we didn't know about Wii:

- Nintendo and Ubi are ONLY companies making money on Wii - Nintendo with the 1st party software and Ubi with the Petz games.

- Wii compared to 360/PS3 is like "a fucking Genesis"

- You'll probably never make your money back if you spend $500k/$600k

- Unless you spend $350k/$500k - you will not see any return on the investment.

- GUARANTEED to lose money if a development is over $2 million

- MadWorld must sell 2-3 million copies to make a profit.

- In order to port a 360/PS3 game to Wii, you will need to make a thats "less than a PS2 game".

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=356046

[Indigo Rush]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/46982.html

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=356046

So the truth is revealed.

Makes sense that Nintendo is making money off of their own games, though. It's a shame because some of the titles on there are really good.

[Candescence]

If this guy's information is so reliable, then why were the guys in the show laughing at him and more than half of the guys in the GAF topic taking the absolute piss out of him and calling his statements a whole load of bullshit? Also, there's quite a few points that he's talking bullshit:

Sorry but if games need to sell 2-3 million to be a success, your business model is fubar

- He claimed that you can't make a profit on Wii games with bigger budgets than 2 million.

A publisher typically gets around ~$16 return per unit sold, so to reach $2 million you need to sell ~125k. Hundreds of Wii games have reached that number.

- He claimed that only Nintendo and Ubisoft are making profit on Wii, Ubisoft thanks to their Petz crap.

This is doubly wrong, because not only does Wii have 21+ third party million sellers (and a great deal more games that were profitable), Ubisoft have actually gone on record saying that their casual games have not done so well on Wii.

And there's a lot more where that came from.

Honestly, this sounds like an epic fail, this guy is talking out of his ass. How does he know that only Nintendo and Ubi are profiting (hell, the Petz thing is WRONG), unless he somehow has access to said information from other companies? He's talking crap, guys.

Edited March 22, 2009 by Soma Cruz

[Tornado]

I find his statements regarding the 360 (in particular) and PS3 (by association) odd. When taken into account that 360/PS3 games costing more despite the idea of them being that much more expensive to produce being pretty much bullshit (PC ports of 360 games cost the same as PC ports of XBox games used to), unless licencing fees for the PS3/360 are higher than they were in the previous generation (or games are sold at a loss on the PC) publishers also most likely make at least the same amount of money/production costs ratio per game on the 360/PS3 (if not more in many cases).

Edited March 22, 2009 by Tornado

[Conando]

It definitely seems like this guy is talking out of his ass, and must have no idea of how money making actually works in the software business. If he did, he'd know it'd be easy for companies to at least break even considering the fact that Wii development costs roughly the same as the last generation's cost development, while 360 and PS3 cost considerably more, and even then about 250-500k still has a bit of a profit for them. Also, what the hell did he expect with a port of a mediocre game? The new audience for Wii wasn't going to buy it, and the so-called "hardcore" weren't going to buy it because it's mediocre.

Edited March 22, 2009 by Hero Of Fate

[Urtheart]

Wait so M&S didn't make any money?

Despite being one of the top 5 selling games on the console?

Yeah I have my doubts.

Although actually his statement about Madworld having to sell over 3 million to profit is true, it's true with any game.

[Patticus]

Given the installed user base of the Wii, and the cheapness of development (I remember reading in the run-up to launch that the entire dev kit only cost $1000), I'm willing to state that this is bollocks. In fact, if anything, it seems like an excuse for making cheap and nasty tat.

Pete Wanat is what's wrong with the games industry.

[Strong Bad]

Wait so M&S didn't make any money?

Despite being one of the top 5 selling games on the console?

Yeah I have my doubts.

Although actually his statement about Madworld having to sell over 3 million to profit is true, it's true with any game.

M&S has half Nintendo chars, so yeah, it made tons of money. For Nintendo.

[Patticus]

If developers make no money on making Wii games (which inevitably cost less to make as it's lo-tech and fairly similar to the 'Cube in terms of coding), then by that logic the industry must be haemorrhaging billions supporting the more expensive-to-dev-for and harder to code HD consoles.

[PSI Wind]

M&S has half Nintendo chars, so yeah, it made tons of money. For Nintendo.

And we also have Sonic & Co.

In Japan, it was developed/published by Nintendo. In America, SEGA developed/published it. So Nintendo & SEGA get 50/50.

[blackherox]

And we also have Sonic & Co.

In Japan, it was developed/published by Nintendo. In America, SEGA developed/published it. So Nintendo & SEGA get 50/50.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Sega just pay a certain amount to Nintendo to use the Mario License (as well as the Olympic License? It would be a similar scenario to Brawl I think. Or was it region dependant (i.e. Sega get the money made in America and Europe because they published it there, whereas Nintendo get the money made from Japan).

[Urtheart]

M&S has half Nintendo chars, so yeah, it made tons of money. For Nintendo.

Published by SEGA in Europe and US

Published by Ninty in Japan

Go ask Kev.

[ShadiWulf]

SEGA developed Mario and Sonic, one of their internal japan divisions did with supposebly the help of miyamoto.

[Strong Bad]

Published by SEGA in Europe and US

Published by Ninty in Japan

Go ask Kev.

Doesn't matter who published it, Nintendo gets final say on where profits go for games sold on their consoles.

[Urtheart]

Doesn't matter who published it, Nintendo gets final say on where profits go for games sold on their consoles.

If that was the case, why the heck would anyone develop for the console in the first place? In fact why would anyone make a game for the Wii?

Devlopers pay an intial fee for dev kits and licensing rights for their games on the respective console they want to produce. When the game is made the money flow goes like this:

Retailers pay Publishers for a set amount of copies that they sell in their stores (and they can order more later) and the publisher distributes it to them through a set dealer. Then people buy the game from the retailer (which if succesful, they'll buy more off the publiusher).

But no matter what the money ends up at the publisher, who will first pay off debts for dev kits, lisences, peoples pay etc, and after all debts are paid then they make money (which is distributed through the comapny).

While Nintendo will obviously get a slice of the profit from the lisence of their charater in M&S, since SEGA publisged in the west they make the profit. Why do you think they've been happy with the game succes if they made no money.

Nintendo's only power would be to refuse a developing lincese, once that's agreed and paid for, unless they break contract, Nintendo have very little say in it.

[The Si BadGuii]

Nintendo making money on Wii

Huh, who knew?

[Strong Bad]

If that was the case, why the heck would anyone develop for the console in the first place? In fact why would anyone make a game for the Wii?

I don't understand either, Urth, the Wii sucks pretty hard.