Horizon Forbidden West and TLOU2 cost Sony $200+million (each) to develop!

The source says the marketing budget is not included. If we add marketing, then it's possible TLOU2 and HFW cost around $300M each. Which is almost as much as what each game grossed in sales revenue. So it's questionable whether they broke even, let alone made a profit.

Its most likely not sustainable if that's all they're making, but that's not the case, is it? Titles worth 200M is not all Sony is developing, and they certainly didn't acquire the likes of Housemarque for these kind of games. If their GaaS games are successfull, profits from these cash cows can fund their massive budget singleplayer titles. Of course this is the best case scenario, but if this is indeed what happens, that would be amazing. Sony is pushing the industry, and if there is no TLOU2-like titles in the future, Sony is just another developer, and i don't want to see that happening.

Halo infinite cost $500 million and probably sold 20k copies lmao

False but don't let the facts trip you up.😂

@hardwenzen: That's fine, but let's not pretend 200+million budget games are superior than low to mid-budget games based on budget alone. There isn't much of a bragging right there when there's a higher frequency of quality games coming from the former, and much kinder for the success of dev teams.

Games take money to make. Not sure what the point of this topic even is.

There are plenty of low-mid budget games. You don't need to try to find one. 200M+ games are rare, let alone high quality 200M titles that were made to be a video game, and not a gambling attraction. If Fromsoft had 200M+ to burn on a game, and their gameplay didn't suffer, i would ALWAYS take that 200M game over what they currently offer. A very high budget game made by a developer that cares about quality is superior to everything else (minus the fact that most high budget titles are very safe, which can indeed suck). That is what i am saying.

It may not negatively affect the experience, however the most successful Xbox yet was one that played the exclusive game. So while it won’t have a negative effect on the experience, one must ask “can exclusives truly contribute towards a platform success?”

@Jag85: LoU2 reportedly sold 10 million a year ago, so it would be more now. They made a profit, that's for sure, thinking otherwise is foolish.

As for Sony's case with the cost. Considering some movies (no pun intended) that cost half as much but provide a twentieth as much entertainment...but in another way, that's not really bad. As long as they make their investment back of course.

You're ignoring the fact that most of those sales came from heavily discounted prices. It's had discount prices in the $10-30 range. When you take discount prices into account, it's highly doubtful that it made a profit. It's just simple maths. It would be foolish to deny the maths.

It is false. Feel free to provide evidence of this claim and please don't use rumors.🤭

Pointing out the facts is now shilling. You Sony fannies are a trip.

It sold over 4 million units in its first 3 days on sale. At $60 per unit, that equates to $240 million, so $20 million more than its budget in just 3 days. So there's still over 6 million copies worth of money to add to that. So yes, it made its money back and made a healthy profit.

Foolish to think Sony didn't make money on it.

@last_lap: Don’t forget marketing. It’s super expensive. Sony spends hundreds of millions a year for advertising.

Also on physical releases Sony on gets like half of that money.

And yet so shit. Just like Marvel movies.

Its gaming budget, so the marketing money would more than likely be in that $220 million, also don't forget the digital sales where Sony took 100% of the profits, its collectors editions, and that other 6 million copies sold. Sony made money on the game.

@last_lap: That’s not what they stated. They said the game cost that much to develop. Trust me, if Sony really banked that much profit on one game their profit per year would be insanely high.

It says that probably doesn't count marketing, so its speculation on all parties who say it is or isn't.

I still stand by that Sony made money on it, if they weren't making money then they wouldn't be making games.

@last_lap: Yeah, they probably made a tiny bit of money. But nowhere near Nintendo money.

What voice acting? 🤨

It's foolish to only look at the development budget and ignore the marketing budget. Assuming the marketing budget is around $100M, that's $320M for development+marketing. Then when you take retailer cuts into account, you're looking at a break-even point of around $350-400M (similar to how Hollywood movies have a break-even point around 2.5 times the production budget). Assuming the additional 6 million copies sold at around $20 discount, the total revenue barely adds up to around $350M. In other words, it's highly doubtful that they made a profit on the game. Again, it's just simple maths.

@Jag85: no one knows nor does the author of that article that if that ncludes marketing. So we can only go by the facts.

They are that the game sold a MINIMUM 4 million units at full price, and we know Sony took 100% of the digital sales. I believe they made a tidy profit, you don't, let's just leave it at that as I'm tired of stating the same thing over & over again.

Meh...MS spent 500 million on halo infinite and that game is in another league compared to what Sony offers.

@last_lap:

Official documents from Sony confirmed that TLOU2 and HFW cost over $200M each for the development alone:

The Last of Us Pt. II cost $220 million to develop (200 Devs), Horizon Forbidden West cost $212 million (300 Devs), poorly redacted docs state

The documents also state both games had a large marketing budget in addition to the huge development budget. In other words, it's likely that each game cost over $300M for development and marketing combined. Which would give us a break-even point of around $350-400M (taking into account retailer and distributor cuts for physical units). That's a tall order. Hence why I said it's questionable whether they managed to make a profit on these games.

Yes, Halo Infinite is in the minor leagues

lol :P

MS definitely took a big loss on Halo Infinite for sure.

A question: even though Sony is a publicly-owned company, it obligated under the law to disclose the actual developmental and marketing costs of its games?

@Jag85: it wasn't a loss, it was an investment and halo infinite is one of the greatest games to release this gen, it's true.

They aren't obligated to disclose that information.

There are specific financial details that publicly traded companies are required to disclose but, a lot of it really comes down to what shareholders are interested in knowing and/or what the board wants to disclose.

I think they know its debunked, but you cant let facts stop you from using it as ammo. Fanboy 101

DEBUNKED

That's another way of saying MS took a big financial loss on Halo Infinite.

Sometimes you're more toxic against Nintendo than i am🤭

They cost how much!? I thought they would be in the 80-100 million range. 200+ million a pop on just production....that's just insane.

No wonder the AAA sector is a creatively dead wasteland that's not desperately trying to go to GAAS and is nickle and diming as much as possible. Bloody hell that's shocking!

...Is there anything to be said for maybe sticking to PS3/360 budgets and looking at others ways to use the extra horsepower in modern systems? That was the last gen really where AAA games were still interesting.

The cost of greatness.

But more than the money invested is the vision and talent at the top. That's what separates Nintendo (who seem to just occupy their own tier of distilled, consistent greatness) from Sony (who are doing great work more often than not) from Microsoft (who struggle mightily with franchise consistency and output outside of Forza and Gears).

It is remarkable, in retrospect, to consider that Microsoft's most vibrant generation of gaming output was the couple of years at the end of the Xbox's run and the first few years of the 360's run. They were putting out bangers, innovating in the space everywhere from UX and UI to custom music to indie support to achievements to online gaming. They had a genuinely really diverse catalog of games and ideas, bringing forward and/or supporting 3rd party IPs like Project Gotham Racing, Geometry Wars, Crimson Skies, Gears, Kameo, Blue Dragon, Chromehounds, Mass Effect, Mech Assault, even Viva Pinata, Crackdown, and Perfect Dark were stabs at something different, even if clearly flawed. For a brief time, they were the gold standard that everyone was struggling to catch up with. Sony's online offerings in the PS3 years were clown shoes. Nintendo's are *still* clown shoes. Microsoft regressed greatly in creativity while failing to grow and advance in execution.

I feel like Too Human was the real beginning of the end. Huge investment, huge hype, complete flop. Combined with the overall failures of Rare and relegation to Kinect games (prior to finding success with Sea of Thieves) exposed huge failures in Microsoft's structure and corporate style, which failed to get the best out of their teams. That truth continues through today with the disaster we see at 343.

Some days I feel like Turn 10, The Coalition, and Moon Studios are all they have that they can rely on and that's just not good enough. It's a good thing they have Bethesda and will eventually have Activision. They need them in the worst way. They need to just sit and learn from those organizations as much as they can.

Makes me wonder how much on average a Fromsoft game is worth developing. No way something like Dark Souls 3 was more expensive than 10-15M, right?

Elden Ring textures were bad… really bad

@osan0: Honestly, if most games offered PS360 visuals with higher resolution and framerates, I'd be happy with that. Better lighting too I suppose, that can go a long way.

And the lighting is even worse. Draw distance is also pathetic. Their engine is from 1988.

Zoomers don't seem to mind 1988 graphics... Just look at Minecraft.

Don't care lol. Fromsoft creates one of the most immersive titles you can find, and with a quality engine, they'd be able to achieve what nobody else could. I want this to happen for so long, but they're STILL using their trash engine.

Hell, even Bethesda has significantly improved (can't believe i am saying this lol as someone who has been pooping on their engine for way over 10 years) their engine with Starfield.

ALL THAT MONEY AND NOT A SINGLE DROP OF SOUL WAS FOUND IN EITHER GAME!

Probably includes a big chunk of marketing, then performance capture, voice acting etc. Actual game content will not be that high. This is the reason that most indie/mid level games don't have voice acting, cutscenes or performance capture but still fairly similar graphical prowess.

AAA publishers made their bed now they have to lie in it. Imangine wasting money on sh*t that has no impact on gameplay.

Yeesh. On the other hand, those games are insanely polished and run great so there's no doubt they skimped on money for their marquee titles.

But...there is an overlap of a five+ year development time frame? So, aside from Factions, ND must be more than halfway whatever new game their working on, yeah?

They also worked on:

- Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection (PS5)

- The Last of Us Part I (PS5)

and afaik, some limited support of the PC versions.

How about reducing the number of games? Let's say, a lot less of crap indie, like 10.000 less annually.

Or this nonsense.

You have a product, it costs 50.000 to make. You sell it at 60.000. You have 10.000 profit. However, you want to stay in business. Your next product costs 70.000 to make. How much of your tidy profit is left?

You believe... you don't know jack, that's fact.

The writing, mo-cap, animation and VO work probably doubles the actual cost. And it’s only gonna get worse with the unions/strikes. Playstation and Xbox games are gonna start looking more like Nintendo games real quick…

@ghostofgolden: They're going to start to make good games?

@palasta: If you think Sony is making $10 per unit then you're crazy.

I know Sony doesn't take all $60 from retail, but they do in digital.