110°

No More Heroes Does OK In America (Probably Better In Europe)

15
Marvellous Interactive have published some worldwide shipping/sales figures for Suda's No More Heroes. In Japan, homeland of all parties involved? It's done terribly. Only 40,000 copies have shipped since launch. Ouch. How about America, then? Little better: they've shipped around 200,000 copies, and have sold just over 100,000 since launch. Not bad! Finally, however, they announce some European numbers. And while the game's not even out there yet (it's shipping late Feb/early March across all PAL territories), they're expecting to sell 160,000 units across the continent at launch. Could something finally be coming up roses for Suda? Let's hope so!
Read Full Story >>   
kotaku.com
Alternative Sources:
Against All Odds, No More H... - primotechnology.com | By: Bundini
TnS - supercontributor
Published: 692 days 17 hours ago | News | Wii
 
 

Showing: 1 - 12 of 12 Comments
Shut this user up Let user speak
Night4ll - 692 days 13 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
1 - I'm glad
That some people are taking notice of this game... it is a really good game that any Wii owners craving mature themed games should play. There is just so much style and creativity in the game... lets hope that Suda does come out with a sequel like he wants to. I just hoppe that they work on the sandbox part of the game...
Agree(1) | Disagree(0) | Report | Reply
Shut this user up Let user speak
MK_Red - 692 days 13 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
2 -
Glad to hear it didn't bomb at least but sad to see some crappy titles on Wii outselling this gem.
Agree(3) | Disagree(1) | Report | Reply
Shut this user up Let user speak
Reggie Fils- Aime - 692 days 7 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
2.1 -
no title on the Wii is crappy

the innovative controls mean that every game is joy to play
Agree(2) | Disagree(4) | Report
Shut this user up Let user speak
toaboa - 692 days 1 hour ago
PM
Track
Ignore
2.2 - Reggie wrote:
>no title on the Wii is crappy
>the innovative controls mean that every game is joy to play

Ahh, ROFL, best laugh of the day :-D - thanks man!
Agree(0) | Disagree(1) | Report
Shut this user up Let user speak
wiizy - 692 days 12 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
3 - lol
good to know that the game is selling well with no commercial or advertisement.
Agree(2) | Disagree(1) | Report | Reply
Shut this user up Let user speak
PS360WII - 692 days 8 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
4 -
Awesome game and glad they are happy with the sales :)
Agree(1) | Disagree(0) | Report | Reply
Shut this user up Let user speak
UltramanJ - 692 days 6 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
5 - Sales are lower than I had hoped
Heroes looks like a very cool game overall. It's a shame sales aren't higher, and makes me wonder if they're kicking themselves for not leaving this game on the 360 where it would've sold far better. The Wii may be selling like gangbusters but the types of gamers that this game is aimed at are the minority of the Wii installed base.
Agree(0) | Disagree(1) | Report | Reply
Shut this user up Let user speak
TruthbeTold - 692 days 5 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
5.1 - Bah.
How many more copies would the game need to sell in order to reach profit level on the Xbox 360? Probably more than a quarter million more. By the time this game hits a few months in Europe, and the U.S. has a little more time, (it's only been out for 3 weeks in the U.S. and it sold 40k or so last week for crying out loud) Suda and the gang will likely have turned quite a nice profit. This game couldn't have cost more than 4 or 5 million to create. Probably not even close to that much. Not to mention that NMH would have been quite a different game controls wise on another system, which would be a bad thing considering how great they made them for the Wii.
Agree(0) | Disagree(0) | Report
Shut this user up Let user speak
Prismo_Fillusion - 692 days 2 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
6 -
Suda is very happy with the sales so far. It's sold around 30,000+ copies each week for its first three weeks in the US. I heard they're shipping 160,000 copies to Europe and their total goal for game sales is 500,000 - which they think they can reach at the current rates. That's not bad at all.
Agree(0) | Disagree(0) | Report | Reply
Shut this user up Let user speak
toaboa - 692 days 1 hour ago
PM
Track
Ignore
6.1 - Aiming for 500.000 total sales
Lets try a quick guestimated profit calculation.

Assumptions:
(1) Developer gets 10% of street price pr. unit
(2) Staff vages are roughly equivalent US/Europe/JP and would then cost you close to 90-100USD pr. man hour.
(3) Average street price of NMH: 40USD

500.000 copies x 40USB at 10% royalties = M2USD, meaning that you as a studio would have roughly 20.000 man hours at your disposal before you start loosing money and 18.000 man hours to net a healthy 10% profit. 18.000 man hours is roughly 18 engineerer years works and has to cover everything: management, PR, software, assets, tools, QA etc. Comming from a strong background in software development and project management, i'd say Suda and his crew are damm good at their business if they can turn a 10% profit.
Agree(0) | Disagree(0) | Report
Shut this user up Let user speak
TruthbeTold - 691 days 23 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
6.2 - @ 6.1
1. NMH costs $50 not $40

2. Nintendo will get about $5 - $10 per copy sold, retailers between $5 and $10 depending on their respective deals. The rest goes to the developers. I don't know where you got that %10 stuff from.

Even shooting very low and assuming that the developers only get $30 per copy of the game sold they would still make $15 million if NMH sells 500k.

Let's assume that for some insane, absurdly expensive reason that this game cost $5 million to make. That's still a $10 million dollar profit to be spread amongst Suda 51/Grasshopper studio, and Ubisoft.

This game is highly profitable at only a quarter million copies sold. Even assuming the worst in regards to cost and return percentages.
Agree(0) | Disagree(0) | Report
Shut this user up Let user speak
toaboa - 689 days 23 hours ago
PM
Track
Ignore
6.3 - 6.3 - @ 6.2
>1. NMH costs $50 not $40
Well I estimated an overall lifetime price, since not all 500.000 copies will be sold at the current RRP

>2. Nintendo will get about $5 - $10 per copy sold, retailers between >$5 and $10 depending on their respective deals. The rest goes to the >developers. I don't know where you got that %10 stuff from.

Based on me following the industry for a long time, readily awailable reserach (try gamesutra and google), I beg to differ. Based on again readily available data, the value chain for development and distributing is as follows: developer -> publisher -> licencee -> distributor(might be handled by publisher) -> retail -> sales tax. Given that the industry guards theese numbers as a normal part of contracting and NDA's general figures can be found: retail takes 50%, licensee(nintentdo) 5%, developer 15-25%, rest goes to publisher.

I'd give you that my 10% is a bit low, normal rates citet are 15 to 25 of retail price, given that Grasshopper hasn't had any significant retail hits I'd probably revise my guestimate for royalties to 15%

>Let's assume that for some insane, absurdly expensive reason that >this game cost $5 million to make.
Have you any factual data to back this? Based again on industry numbers, development figures and software metrics plenty of games costs M5USD to develop - probably not NMH's but I'm sure I was more in the 20 man years area ~ M2USD.

Go spend some time on gamesutra, read some postmortals, read up on development cost, game business cases, get an idea about software metrics and modern game development. I think you'll be surprised about the size and effort needed to develop, marked and produce games.
Agree(0) | Disagree(1) | Report
Add Comment (Gamer Zone)
Gamer Zone Posting Guidelines
The Gamer Zone is for members who want a more friendly and civilized discussion. This section is heavily moderated by the N4G staff, so leave your fanboyism at the door please. Members who are unable to behave in a mature and respectful manner will be temporarily or permanently restricted from posting in the Gamer Zone. Using words such as Xbots and Sony droids, or other words from the console war vocabulary, is strictly prohibited in this Zone.
Read More...
 
 
You must log in to post comments.
Username:  
Password:  
 
 
About N4G
N4G is a social game news site that covers the game industry 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
More Info... | Submit News