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[Bartski]

https://www.axios.com/2023/06/29/playstation-game-budgets-leak

Sony’s 2022 PS4 and PS5 blockbuster Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million to develop over a five-year period, and its 2020 hit The Last Of Us Part II cost around $220 million to make.

Both games are sure to have been profitable, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter and Cowen’s Doug Creutz tell Axios.

• Pachter pegs Sony’s profit on each at close to $300 million.
• His math includes cuts for marketing and physical retailers.
• It also helps that these are Sony-made games for a Sony console, so the game maker here doesn’t need to give the standard 30% cut to the platform holder. Economics for blockbusters, in other words, favor first-party games.

 

[Gudji]

TLOU2 and HFW didn't make any profit confirmed.

 

[Moses85]

Wow, he is still alive?

 

[Bartski]

this shit is unsustainable

 

[Roberts]

Did somebody told him these budgets didn’t include marketing costs?

 

[X-Wing]

Did somebody told him these budgets didn’t include marketing costs?

How do you know that?

 

[DeepEnigma]

Going bankrupt and both studios shutdown, confirmed.

 

[mckmas8808]

TLOU2 and HFW didn't make any profit confirmed.

LOL! I was thinking the same thing.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

shut up

 

[Kdad]

Did somebody told him these budgets didn’t include marketing costs?

• His math includes cuts for marketing and physical retailers.

 

[Roberts]

How do you know that?

I’ve seen this mentioned numerous times by gaming journos on twitter yesterday so I assumed that as some sort of common knowledge.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

this shit is unsustainable

Not sure if you're joking or not.

Both games produced enough profit to...checks notes... make one more AAA sequel.

The Last of Us 3 is going to cost more than 220 million to make. Horizon III is going to be more expensive than Forbidden West. You don't have to look too far into the future to see how unattractive that trend becomes.

It's crazy how slow people are to realize why PlayStation is going so hard into Live Service.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

this shit is unsustainable

Explain?

Sounds to me like it’s very much sustainable.

 

[Pelta88]

Patcher doesn't know shit.

Highly profitable? More like robbing Fort Knox. Do the basic math, they were in profit in the first weekend of TLOU 2's release. And the game has constantly in the sales charts since release.

 

[Bartski]

Explain?

Sounds to me like it’s very much sustainable.

I'm no expert, you could try asking Men_in_Boxes

 

[Matsuchezz]

this shit is unsustainable

/S

 

[skit_data]

Who needs the bundle-argument when you have Pachter saying stuff like this?
Both games have clearly bombed big time, costing Playstation approximately 300 million each.
And if haven't yet, they clearly will in one way or another in the future. Everything according to the Law of Pachter.

 

[Pedro Motta]

What a failure.

I bet they would make more money if instead of selling 10 Million copies, it reached 15 Million players.

 

[YuLY]

So COD gave them 800mil revenue just in 2021 according to the FTC released info, but both of these games which took like 5 years to make, couldnt beat COD revenue from a single year. You can see why the industry is moving towards gaas trash.

 

[Represent.]

Make great games. Make money. The oldest formula in the book is undefeated.

 

[Represent.]

So COD gave them 800mil revenue just in 2021 according to the FTC released info, but both of these games which took like 5 years to make, couldnt beat COD revenue from a single year. You can see why the industry is moving towards gaas trash.

Only the cream of the crop gaas trash games are actually a success. 95% of them will fail. Sony's too

 

[Ronin_7]

TLOU2 and HFW didn't make any profit confirmed.

First thing i thought.

That guy knows jackshit.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

Long live single player experiences.

 

[YuLY]

Only the cream of the crop gaas trash games are actually a success. 95% of them will fail. Sony's too

True, but they are also much cheaper than the 5 year single player games. You fund 3-4 gaas from the money you need for a new The Last of Us. And if one of those 3-4 hit, you already make more money AND for longer from that 1 successful gaas.

 

[X-Wing]

I’ve seen this mentioned numerous times by gaming journos on twitter yesterday so I assumed that as some sort of common knowledge.

As far as I remember that was not stated in the documents… I may be wrong

 

[Skifi28]

So you're saying the games actually lost money? The pach-man strikes again.

 

[R3EUIL]

I was excited about this information until I found out who gave it...

 

[R3EUIL]

So COD gave them 800mil revenue just in 2021 according to the FTC released info, but both of these games which took like 5 years to make, couldnt beat COD revenue from a single year. You can see why the industry is moving towards gaas trash.

this is revenue not profit, not to mention sony takes 20% of each sale

 

[Azelover]

Here we go again!

 

[ZehDon]

Gotcha, Sony lost over USD$300 million on each title. Crazy.

 

[Embearded]

What a failure.

I bet they would make more money if instead of selling 10 Million copies, it reached 15 Million players.

Can we also replace loading screens with 5sec ads?

 

[Allandor]

this is revenue not profit, not to mention sony takes 20% of each sale

20% for doing almost nothing at all (at least not Sony nor MS). These games are a real goldmine for the platforms.

Guess why epic made their own store on PC for Fortnite. 20% for another shop (like steam) is a really big pile of money, while servers etc are all paid by the game studio itself.

To the topic:
Single player games have much more risk to fail and therefore double the money you invested can be a problem. Selling endless variations of skins does so far not work on single player games. That's where this yearly money comes from.
And still I really don't know who pays do much for skins...
I would always prefer to pay 60-80€ for a complete game and maybe pay for some expansions to the story, but never for skins

 

[E-Cat]

Good ol' Patcher. Remember when he thought the PS3/360 would be the last console gen ever?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I'm no expert, you could try asking Men_in_Boxes

You don't need to be an expert to see how budgets are ballooning.

 

[kazuyamishima]

Patcher is crap, but doing maths is pretty clear both games have made a profit.

How much, we’ll possible never know.

 

[Fatal Chuck Yeager]

Games need to disconnect a bit from the hollywood strategy, including the heavy outsourcing for things they may not need to, if they want the costs to drop.

I'm curious what Starfields budget will be and whether it will be lower or higher than the $220 million of LOU2 and Horizon.

Fallout 4's was $150M, Skyrim and Fallout 76 where $100M.

 

[R3EUIL]

this is revenue not profit, not to mention sony takes 20% of each sale

Yes, I agree that receiving 30% (20% in the case of Activision) of each purchase is more comfortable than spending hundreds of millions per game (Valve discovered this a long time ago), but I was referring to that value of CoD generated on platforms PlayStation is not that big compared to the real profit Sony made (160 million, 20% of 800 million)

 

[Crispy Gamer]

The Inverse Cramer effect

 

[Stooky]

Games need to disconnect a bit from the hollywood strategy, including the heavy outsourcing for things they may not need to, if they want the costs to drop.

I'm curious what Starfields budget will be and whether it will be lower or higher than the $220 million of LOU2 and Horizon.

Fallout 4's was $150M, Skyrim and Fallout 76 where $100M.

You outsource to cut down the price. Every industry outsources there’s nothing Hollywood about it. Tlou2 and horizon are great looking games and were succesful why does it matter what the budget was? They could make it for 100mil and have it look like and play like fallout……you get what you pay for.

 

[Spukc]

Damn i had no clue Sony made a loss on both games..

Makes sense that they are trying to stop microsoft getting activision..

It would kill them

 

[tryDEATH]

I would have assumed they would be closer to 1 billion each, they're huge games.

 

[El Pistolero]

Pachter? One would absolutely need to quadruple check...

 

[93xfan]

Well obviously if Sony were to edge Microsoft out of the market, surely Sony would double down on new franchises that take risks in these genres. No way they’d scale things back and take in the 30% while trying GaaS