The Shrine

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://ign64.ign.com/news/33211.html">h ... 11.html</a>

Conker unfun sales</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Like the related editorial says, Wrestling sells, Mario sells, Zelda sells, and Pokemon sells, but a lot of other things don't sell.</div>

<div style='font: italic 11pt "times new roman", Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 1% 0% 1%; '>Actually, I doubt any game released for the N64 from here on is going to sell exceptionally well...</div>

<div style='font: 11pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Evidently you've never seen the Master P Make Em Say Ugh doll. :P</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Too bad 11 of the top 20 titles sold last year were on the N64, according to one of those chart things :). Besides, 2 little games called Perfect Dark and Goldeneye refute your theory.</div>

<div style='font: bold 12pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: left; '>It's just cause the were the only worth while multiplayer games on the system. I dont care what you say, wrestling is no fun multiplayer, at least not to the extent of FPS games.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>First of all you don't know how much Nintendo spends to develop these games. You think if you're the Miytamoto or one of the guy main guys behind a Zelda game, knowing full well that the game will sell at least 1 million, that you'd be expected to pay the same as Joe Smoe programmer? No way. If a game is expected to sell a million everytime, it'd probably need to sell a million to turn a profit, too. Well, maybe not the Gameboy games, but this is N64 we're talking about here.

Perfect Dark, like the related editorial says, only sold like around 600K despite having all the marketing power in the world. It didn't come close to the sales of Goldeneye even though it's more or less a sequel to it. I'm not even sure if the game is profitable at 600K. Like I say, a game that is expected to sell millions probably need to sell millions to turn a profit.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Turok II sold 3.5M</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>And it sucked! Just goes to show how smart your average N64 gamer is! =)</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Modern; text-align: left; '>If Pokemon was what was holding Nintendo up high, they would also be posting up losses, since 1 game can't account for many games supposedly not bringing in their "money's worth". Anyway, you know how Rare runs their business??? From what I read they use prestige, and benefits rather than a high salary to employees to get people to work there. Besides if you ever read Fatbabies the one thing they all complain about is low pay in the games industry, and Rare is supposed to be one of the stingier ones. Sure, the comps they use to do their work on PD might have cost some money, but I doubt it would run up to any exorbitant price past 3 million dollars total(this estimate is probably far off the truth). I doubt Rare spent as much as money making the game so as to make PD need to sell 600k+ or else they won't get a profit.</div>

<div style='font: italic 11pt "times new roman", Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 1% 0% 1%; '>I said "from here on"</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>There's more than Pokemon for the Gameboy, you know, even though that game alone can probably hold Nintendo up. Also developing costs for Gameboy has to be a lot less, just because the games are simpler, and therefore you don't need as many people working on it. Gameboy is a monopoly. Monopoly = profit no matter how you look at it. Well, that's not technically true, but if Gameboy isn't profitable, then there's no reason why N64 should even survive, because it's clear that Gameboy is far more successful than the N64, whether you want to measure by revenue or total sales or whatever.

There are plenty of games that needs to sell millions to make money, namely every single big name games out there. Shenmue, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Zelda, Mario, etc. The cost of Shenmue was around $50 million. Do you realize that even if the game is pure profit you'd have to sell about a million of them just to recover the cost? Final Fantasy 7 took around $50 million or so to make too. I doubt Nintendo can get away this cost. The technology they used to develop games is certainly top of the line, and I don't see them skimping out on programmers and artists and the usual stuff you have to pay for in a video game. 

Programmers are not bound by some legal contract to work for a company. If you're making a game you know that's expected to sell millions, you'd expect to be paid a lot more than Joe Smoe programmer programming a game that's struggling to sell 30K.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Isn't the best selling game on PSX Crash Bandicoot 2?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I was refering to your title only</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Nintendo Published N64 Software outsold gameboy. I don't think Pokemon sold 7 million copies in 6 weeks world wide, or even in the first year or two.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt papyrus, Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>I doubt it.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Well, actually it is =)</div>

<div style='font: italic 11pt "times new roman", Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 1% 0% 1%; '>And what does your claim about Turok 2's sales have to do with the N64 being promoted as a younger gamer's machine? Think about it before you reply ok.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>"Nintendo's Super Mario 64 holds the record for best-selling video game of all time, selling 5.6 million units since 1995. It seems likely the all-time champion, but Nintendo's Pokémon Yellow is quickly threatening the record."</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>It has to do with your implying that M-17 games can't sell on N64.</div>

<div style='font: 14pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Rare pays quite a few employees just 30k a year :). They take people with no previous gaming background and pretty much mold them into shape.</div>

<div style='font: italic 11pt "times new roman", Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 1% 0% 1%; '>In that case, maybe my comment was unclear. But then again, how could you fail to pick up on it by reading the very post you replied to?? Of course it's possible for a game geared for older players to still sell well on a system primarily targeted at younger ones. Nintendo has many long time fans such as myself who own a 64 despite the majority of games that are on it. Assuming Seeker's figures are actually correct, I find it humourous and a little ironic. I've played Turok 2 and it wasn't even very good (this is a system that also had Goldeneye as well as the countless Doom Hexen and Duke Nukem games). I'd like to see Gamecube become much more than another Pokemon/Mario singalong machine, however I'm not getting my hopes up too high for that.

Please don't continue to assume I think it's impossible for a game with blood to sell well on the N64. I really hate being repetitive. I could assume that since Turok 2 had impressive sales figures, you can't understand why Conker: BFD did not... but I won't. There is a world of difference between a cute little squirrel in a t-shirt and a dinosaur killer with axes and arrows, even if they've both been rated as M-17. That is why my original comment does not "imply" to refer to Turok 2.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Strange, NPD reported that Mario 64 broke the 14M mark last year sometime for World Wide sales</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I mean they hired one of the people I know in college at EA Sports or something to work on memory for NCAA 2001 or something like that. I mean yeah if your job is just to gather the names of all the new football players you won't get paid that much regardless of how much the game sells, but the main programmers, directors, and other important figures make plenty of money. I know Square operates on a royalty basis for their important people (e.g. Uematsu, the guy behind the FF series, etc), one would imagine any comparable company would pay their big guys of comparable wage.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial, Modern; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>The parallels to the movie industry (which is a more well-known batch of numbers) are significant. A title that takes in $3 million at the box office may be profitable while a title taking in $150 million may not; it's all about production costs. And don't forget, marketing and distribution, not to mention the retailer's percentage, are often not even factored in. (If an article talks about "production" or "development" cost, usually marketing/distribution are not part of the number.) Titanic in a sense was lucky - ONLY the staggering domestic gross they got would have been a hit; I'm trying to remember the cost, but it was I believe around $150 million. That meant that if that number were due, they NEEDED a $300 million gross domestic to break even, and usually one or two movies a year, only, will gross that much. It was quite a long shot for the studio. (Which they won, of course.)

I know that a movie that grosses domestically roughly twice its production cost will turn a profit, due to the fact that production and marketing usually about equal production cost, and that foreign sales and video rentals will be profit after that point in addition to any domestic grosses over twice production. Don, is there a similar number for video games?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial, Modern; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>Or sales figures anyway...

But for what it's worth, saying Nintendo is being "held up" by Pokemon right now is like saying Disney is "held up" by Mickey Mouse. Pokemon has been for several years the SINGLE LARGEST FRANCHISE in the world by merchandising sales. I'm not sure of this year, but through mid-June of last year I'm sure of it. In other words, it's bigger than Monopoly, bigger than Disney, and bigger than Bugs Bunny. Now, my own ignorance is showing, because I have no idea how much money that is relative to Nintendo's expenses or their total income, but I'm going out on a limb and stating that it's more than enough to keep the company operating at a surplus.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "Arial bold", Modern; text-align: left; '>Perfect Dark sold 900k+, you can check videogames.com for that. Love 'em or hate them, Nintendo is BY FAR the most profitable developer in the world.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial, Modern; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>And hey! Hows life treating ya?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>And I'm not "continuing to assume" anything. In case you couldn't tell I was only reffering to your original post and how Seeker's message "had to do with" it. That's all. But forget it. The thread is worthless arguing over semantics.</div>

<div style='font: italic 11pt "times new roman", Modern; text-align: left; padding: 0% 1% 0% 1%; '>Of course I could tell - I've mastered the seemingly lost art of reading <u>before</u> replying. Since you didn't fail to "pick up on it" you must've been trying to tell me that Seeker was wrong, since I wasn't trying to say that M-17 games can't sell on the N64. Oh well, it's cool that you want to drop it..... heheh trying to argue someone else's opinions in a discussion can be a bitch as I'm sure you realize. Sometimes I find arguing my own wearing enough, with the belligerence they tend to invite on themselves around here.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I'm more or less basing from economic analysis. I know I've heard the cost of development for FF7 and Shenmue is around the $50 million range. Now, clearly since they're a brand new effort with a brand new game engine on a new system, there're going to be a bit more expensive than your average million seller (or rather, games that are expected to sell a million), but I find it a little hard to believe that similar million sellers can be developed for, say, $2 million. I'm using tens of millions as an estimate for the budget of any games that is expected to sell millions on a console system, and I think it's a pretty reliable one. Anything less than this then you'd just see these titles mass produced like there's no tomorrow, since if it costs you so little to get a million seller you'll be pumping them out left and right. This, incidentally, is the case of Pokemon. This is a clearly low budget game (it just can't possibly take that many people to program these things, especially if it's on the gameboy), and that's why you see a whole mess of Pokemon games all over the place. Wrestling games are like this. Sports games are like this. Final Fantasy is sort of like this too. Quality versus quantity is probably the biggest myth of video gaming. If you can cheaply produce a game that sells a million, you'd be making 15 versions of the same thing until people stop buying it.

If we use tens of millions as the development cost, assuming each game you make $30, then it stands to reason that you probably need around a million sales to cover the cost. Once again, I think it's just common sense that if you can really make that much money from a million sellers, then the million sellers will be mass produced, like the Pokemon and Final Fantasies of the world. But Nintendo is not doing that, and I don't think it's because they don't care about money. It's because most of their million sellers are expensive and they can ill afford to mass produce them since if any of them flopped, they'll be in big trouble, compare to say, a Pokemon game flopping is no big deal since it never took that much money to made it in the first place.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Arial, Modern; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 8% 0% 8%; '>$30 million games are rare rare...</div>