Slashdot Mirror
Game Companies Face Hard Economic Choices
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the proliferation of free or low-cost games on the Web and for phones limits how high the major game publishers can set prices, so makers are sometimes unable to charge enough to cover the cost of producing titles. The cost of making a game for the previous generation of machines was about $10 million, not including marketing. The cost of a game for the latest consoles is over twice that — $25 million is typical, and it can be much more. Reggie Fils-Aime, chief marketing officer for Nintendo of America, says publishers of games for its Wii console need to sell one million units of a game to turn a profit, but the majority of games, analysts said, sell no more than 150,000 copies. Developers would like to raise prices to cover development costs, but Mike McGarvey, former chief executive of Eidos and now an executive with OnLive, says that consumers have been looking at console games and saying, 'This is too expensive and there are too many choices.' Since makers cannot charge enough or sell enough games to cover the cost of producing most titles, video game makers have to hope for a blockbuster. 'The model as it exists is dying,' says McGarvey."
As we discussed recently, OnLive is trying to change that by moving a big portion of the hardware requirements to the cloud. Of course, many doubt that such a task can be accomplished in a way that doesn't severely degrade gameplay, but it now appears that Sony is working on something similar as well.
Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)
Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary
Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency
What are the reserve currencies?
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people'
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers
A False Choice
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands
Socialising and Privatising
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply
Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund
- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read.
- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organization known as IRGUN who is obsessed with gun control and compulsory service to the country in a capacity which he has yet to define. (Think brown-shirts.) Barack is intimately connected to disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (Rahm inherited Rod's federal-congress seat). Barack Obama is also connected to William Ayers (who ghost-wrote his books); Ayers is a man who promotes the concept that civilian co
What are they saying? That we should have to be more open to funding shite we don't actually want?
Well, yeah, actually. Isn't this what the **AA, car manufacturers, and every other maker of obsolete trash is saying?
mmmm...forbidden donut