Will the relatively poor sales of GT6 affect the development of GTSport?

[MKVSupra]

Theres no way GT Sport is selling over 5 million copies.

Put your money where your mouth is then if you are so sure.

 

[Earth]

Put your money where your mouth is then if you are so sure.

I'll pass

Hopefully it exceeds my expectations and turns out really good and sells well. I have nothing to gain if it doesnt.

 

[MKVSupra]

I'll pass

Hopefully it exceeds my expectations and turns out really good and sells well. I have nothing to gain if it doesnt.

Ahh i see how ardent your views are now, to bad you'll pass. A little $ on a game or race always makes it much much more interesting.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Ahh i see how ardent your views are now, to bad you'll pass. A little $ on a game or race always makes it much much more interesting.

Gambling isn't allowed on GTP.

 

[MKVSupra]

Gambling isn't allowed on GTP.

really, why not.

you guys hold races in Gt and other games, you could legit pool some money and the eventual winner would walk away with a cash prize. Would be epic.

 

[sems4arsenal]

I'll pass

Hopefully it exceeds my expectations and turns out really good and sells well. I have nothing to gain if it doesnt.

There is no way GT Sport will sell less than 5 million.

 

[MKVSupra]

There is no way GT Sport will sell less than 5 million.

First Gt of a gen especially, people really want to see Gt fail it seems.

 

[Samus]

GT on PS4 is guaranteed to sell like hot cakes, just because it's GT on PS4.

 

[sems4arsenal]

GT on PS4 is guaranteed to sell like hot cakes, just because it's GT on PS4.

Exactly, GT5 sold on Hype more than anything.

 

[MKVSupra]

Exactly, GT5 sold on Hype more than anything.

what is hype.

GT5 sold because it had a massive world wide marketing push leading into 2010 holidays. The Kevin Butler commercial was awesome and plentiful on NA tv.

 

[Samus]

what is hype.

GT5 sold because it had a massive world wide marketing push leading into 2010 holidays. The Kevin Butler commercial was awesome and plentiful on NA tv.

Marketing leads to hype, that is kinda the point.

 

[sems4arsenal]

what is hype.

GT5 sold because it had a massive world wide marketing push leading into 2010 holidays. The Kevin Butler commercial was awesome and plentiful on NA tv.

Like @Samus said, some games like Untill dawn sell via word of mouth and people watching streamers play them while games like The order sold on hype and marketing push.

GTSport is a lot simillar to GT5 in terms of hype.

GTS and GT5 do look simillar too

 

[Saidur_Ali]

You're assuming that smaller games make a loss, and that bigger games make a profit. That's not necessarily so.

We know that GT has a massive budget. GT5 was one of the most expensive games ever, at the time. You don't seem to get that it's possible for a game can sell millions of copies, and still struggle to break even if the budget is big enough. What if GTA V had only sold 5 million copies? It cost them $265 million to make, and so they would have had to make $53 on every single copy to break even. No way, Jose.

There's a number for every game, and if you sell less copies than that then you're losing money. For big budget games, the number can be surprisingly high. If you want a real life example of this, look up Shenmue. 1.2 million sales, 4th best selling game on Dreamcast, absolutely no way that it covered it's $50-70 million production costs. It lost Sega money, and it very likely lost them truckloads of the stuff.

Any franchise that is not making money for the business is under threat. In the case of something like GT that can be a system seller it doesn't need to be making all that money directly, but it does need to be able to prove to Sony that it's bringing them money overall. Otherwise, they'd be better off without it.


Sony would never close down their most profitable franchise first, and I have never said that they should close down a profitable studio. That would be insane. The logic is based on the fact that a GT game costs more to develop than most, and so if it starts to fail the losses can be relatively large.



We don't know because they don't tell us, but their staff and licensing costs can really only have increased since GT5. Their production costs are likely higher as well, since they're now laser scanning which is almost certainly more expensive than simply using a camera and a tape measure, and we don't know what new things they're doing with sounds. Or whether they're beefing up their online support.

I don't see how making games is getting any cheaper. Polyphony need more of everything now than they did five years ago.

I'm not assuming this. I know some small games can make a lot of profit.

GT I think has relatively a small budget.

Isn't GT the most profitable franchise Sony have? You are suggesting they may close it although it only has ever had an amazing track record of success. Also brand reach is probably one of the largest in gaming world let alone just PlayStation.

I think closest to scenario you are thinking regarding PDI getting closed down many years from now but probably even more of a dire situation is the current situation Forza franchise is in. Will be interesting to see what Microsoft will do, maybe they will even pull the plug on it. They are probably losing truckloads of money on that franchise for a while now. Doesn't seem much of a system seller too.

I remember you seeing PDI having operating costs of 3.4 million euros a year. That doesn't seem like much to me. If Kunos can afford laser scanning, PDI surely can. Likely be more cost efficient too. If they can release games more quickly due to having assets of high quality to reuse, then costs may be less per title.

 

[Samus]

GT I think has relatively a small budget.

Are you talking about GT6 specifically here? Because GT5 is ranked 28 in the list of most expensive video games of all time. 19 if you discount the marketing budgets.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Are you talking about GT6 specifically here? Because GT5 is ranked 28 in the list of most expensive video games of all time. 19 if you discount the marketing budgets.

All the GT games.

 

[Samus]

All the GT games.

Well obviously the first one was low budget but I can't see how they've done anything but go up since. GT5 was probably an anomaly of sorts given how long it took but I really don't think you could say the current franchise has a small budget after that.

 

[ImaRobot]

I can't imagine acquiring licenses for over 1000 cars to be cheap.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Well obviously the first one was low budget but I can't see how they've done anything but go up since. GT5 was probably an anomaly of sorts given how long it took but I really don't think you could say the current franchise has a small budget after that.

Kaz thinks it is a fairly small amount regarding GT5 development costs. A lot of people on here seem to want PDI to expand a lot due to them being a 'small' studio which I think will likely increase development costs a lot. If as a 'small' studio their budget is considered big for GT5 which likely returned a big profit, don't see how it can be considered relatively a big development budget already if they can have such room for growth and money to invest back into the franchise from Sony?

 

[Tornado]

The only reason earlier GT games would have had lower budgets was because games simply weren't as expensive to make back then. Even with the skeleton crew the original game had, a five year development time for anything followed by a huge marketing blitz is going to be more expensive than most of the games of the time period.

I remember you seeing PDI having operating costs of 3.4 million euros a year. That doesn't seem like much to me.

It doesn't seem like much because it probably isn't true.

If as a 'small' studio their budget is considered big for GT5 which likely returned a big profit, don't see how it can be considered relatively a big development budget already if they can have such room for growth?

Their budget is considered big because they spent over 60 million dollars on the game. "As a small studio" doesn't factor into how over $60 million is still a lot of money.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

what is hype.

GT5 sold because it had a massive world wide marketing push leading into 2010 holidays. The Kevin Butler commercial was awesome and plentiful on NA tv.

So you've went from accusing others of not knowing what they're talking about, to being able to state matter-of-factly the precise reason(s) GT5 sold. Gotcha.

I'm not assuming this.

GT I think has relatively a small budget.

Hmmmm.

Keep in mind that the $60 million figure is extremely conservative, since it came out well over a year before GT5 even released, and it doesn't include the marketing figure. There isn't a racing game out there with a higher quoted budget.

 

[jimipitbull]

Their budget is considered big because they spent over 60 million dollars on the game. "As a small studio" doesn't factor into how over $60 million is still a lot of money.

At that cost, if PD are closed down, there is still someone who could step in and cover costs for the next title

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/kazunori-yamauchi-net-worth/

 

[sircarltonlotus]

Gt sold 20m copies on ps1, 29.5m on ps2 and 21m on the ps3. I'm of the opinion that the development of gts hasn't been affected whatsoever. Sales have been pretty strong in the circumstances

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Their budget is considered big because they spent over 60 million dollars on the game. "As a small studio" doesn't factor into how over $60 million is still a lot of money.

A lot of money for a franchise that has raked it in with previous installments?

Hmmmm.

Keep in mind that the $60 million figure is extremely conservative, since it came out well over a year before GT5 even released, and it doesn't include the marketing figure. There isn't a racing game out there with a higher quoted budget.

We don't really know if it is conservative or an overestimate. Think personally it includes GT5P development costs too. Maybe one day can get answer from Kaz to clear things up. I wonder if Dan will reply if I ask him about Forza development costs, might be worth a try.

 

[Tornado]

A lot of money for a franchise that has raked it in with previous installments?

So it went from "a small budget" to "only a big budget because the team is small" to "a small budget because it sold well". What's next?

 

[jimipitbull]

So it went from "a small budget" to "only a big budget because the team is small" to "a small budget because it sold well". What's next?

I heard GT6 had a relatively small budget.

 

[TrevorPhilips]

Gt sold 20m copies on ps1, 29.5m on ps2 and 21m on the ps3. I'm of the opinion that the development of gts hasn't been affected whatsoever. Sales have been pretty strong in the circumstances

Oh, don't forget GT: PSP too. 4 million plus units. Business as usual. I have not seen one good argument to suggest otherwise.

 

[cutmeamango]

So it went from "a small budget" to "only a big budget because the team is small" to "a small budget because it sold well". What's next?

"What is frame of reference?", Trebek.

http://www.gamereactor.eu/reviews/98944/Killzone+Shadow+Fall/ Here they consider 40mi dollars in 2 years with ~200 employees "modest compared to other massive projects". It sold 2.1mi in its first 2 months. They weren't downsized like Evolution (who ate Studio Liverpool) and are developing Horizon.
Konami supposedly considered 80mi+ in 5 years with a comparable staff size big enough to axe the KojiPro studio. It shipped 5mi copies in 1 month.

By a parent company's point of view it'll like fall into ROI in short or long term planning.

In a simplified manner: X (staff) * Y (dev time) ~= Z (budget)
And then: N (gain) - Z / Z = ROI

So when you compare the other Z1 to Z2 in relation to X1, X2, Y1, Y2, N1, N2, ROI1 and ROI2, those two phrases can be used.

You can too just look Z alone and compare to other elements of a specific set (all games/racing games) and make comparisons.

The title of the topic even plays with that notion.
~5mi sales is poor relative to other main entry sales.

----

And at some point I read in this topic that companies don't plan losses on some products that will be offset by another. Oh boy.

 

[Imari]

Ok mister, you are right and i admit i didnt read the last few pages and so was rather responding to the thread title as to the actual discussion. You could be a bit nicer though.

You'll have to excuse me if I get a bit snarky by the third time of correcting your misunderstandings because you didn't bother to read.

Have a nice day.

I'm not assuming this. I know some small games can make a lot of profit.

GT I think has relatively a small budget.

I see.

What sort of ballpark are we talking here? Roughly how much do you think that they spent on GT6, and roughly how much do you think that they'll be spending on GTS?

We know roughly how much they spent on GT5, obviously, and it was quite a lot.

Isn't GT the most profitable franchise Sony have? You are suggesting they may close it although it only has ever had an amazing track record of success. Also brand reach is probably one of the largest in gaming world let alone just PlayStation.

Historically, probably yes. As I tire of pointing out in the last few pages, businesses make decisions based on current profitability, not whether a franchise was profitable 15 years ago.

Also, the logic was based on them having an amazing track record of success apart from the last one. Which has turned out to be faulty, and which is why I'm no longer advancing that theory. But hey, continue to try and tear down something that was built on limited information. I agree that it's wrong considering what we know now, but that doesn't see to satisfy you.

Would you like some blood? I could sent a pint of my blood over. Maybe you'd enjoy that?

I think closest to scenario you are thinking regarding PDI getting closed down many years from now but probably even more of a dire situation is the current situation Forza franchise is in. Will be interesting to see what Microsoft will do, maybe they will even pull the plug on it. They are probably losing truckloads of money on that franchise for a while now. Doesn't seem much of a system seller too.

I agree, and I'm not really sure how Forza has lasted so long, to be honest. But this is a thread about Gran Turismo.

Then again, Forza has never sold particularly well, and yet it's still going. MS are obviously willing to subsidise it. As I recall, they've historically been willing to throw away huge amounts of money purely for the purpose of building market share.

Sony has never had to make that call with GT because it's always been a cash cow, and it's debatable which way they would go if they had to choose.

I remember you seeing PDI having operating costs of 3.4 million euros a year. That doesn't seem like much to me. If Kunos can afford laser scanning, PDI surely can. Likely be more cost efficient too. If they can release games more quickly due to having assets of high quality to reuse, then costs may be less per title.

I'm sorry? I don't remember seeing that.

$3.7 million USD seems low for 150 employees, especially highly skilled artisans. That would mean that they're earning no more than $25k a year each on average, and that leaves no money for travel, buildings and maintenance, or anything else.

I suppose it's possible, but I think on balance it's highly unlikely that PD are paying it's employees that little. I earned more than that five years ago as a totally unqualified English teacher working 30 hours a week in Japan. These guys are highly skilled professionals that have been with the company for years. I'd expect $50k for most of them at the absolute bare minimum, and even that would probably be ripping them off.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Another take on historical sales. We know that most games make the majority of their sales in the first couple of months. If we assume 3 years as period over which the vast majority of game sales take place for each game we get the following.

PS1 -GT1 10.85M + GT2 9.37M ................... = 20.22 M/6 (1997-2002) = 3.37M/yr
PS2 - GT3 14.89M + GTC 1.56M + GT4 13.13M = 29.58M/8 (2001-2008) = 3.70M/yr
PS3 - GT5P 5.35M + GT5 10.66M + GT6 5M .... = 21.01M/9 (2007-2015) = 2.33M/yr
Source
Note: Sales include all versions on consoles.

 

[gtracedriver1]

There is no way GT Sport will sell less than 5 million.

I don't think it will reach those numbers as most features will be in GT7 instead and most things will be carried over from GTS too. GTS numbers will depends on SP, offline content.

At that cost, if PD are closed down, there is still someone who could step in and cover costs for the next title

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/kazunori-yamauchi-net-worth/

Thanks for the link. So Kaz also has Golf R32. In some interview he mentioned he has GTR V spec, Porsche 911 GT3, Honda S2000, some AMG model and obviously Ford GT. He is having a great job indeed lol. I would like to think since they have relatively less employees, they are all paid well

It is ludicrous to think that Sony is going to shut PDI. GT is going to stay as long as they make console even if Kaz has to step down