Metal Gear Solid 4 Must Sell 1 Million To Break Even
There's an interesting article over at Reuters that claims Metal Gear Solid 4 must sell one million units in order to make even or even be able to begin turning a profit. Destructoid's Jim Sterling says that Metal Gear Solid has never been a system mover and I wholeheartedly agree with him. While many love the series, myself included, it's not exactly as mainstream as Mario , Final Fantasy or even Halo. With only 2 million PlayStation 3s out in the wild as of October, selling one million units at launch is a tall order.
Fortunately, not all of this is bad. Sony currently has 15 internal studios developing games for the slow selling system. That, according to senior vice president of marketing for Sony, Peter Dille, is more than Microsoft and Nintendo combined. What Sony needs to push more systems off of store shelves and into people's entertainment centers are more exclusives. ...and those are certainly on the way. Jeebus knows that I am eagerly awaiting the potential of my PS3 to manifest myself. MGS4 will be one of the titles that I hope will prove my investment in the PlayStation 3 worthwhile. In the meantime, my plethora of both old and new consoles serve to entertain me just fine.
Now, with such pressure to sell one million units just to turn a profit, do you think Konami will seriously consider putting the game on the Xbox 360? I think, if they want to guarantee financial success, that they might want to do just that.
"Metal Gear Solid 4" last of the great exclusives? [Reuters]
[via Destructoid]
Super Timsy
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 29 November 2007
· Comments (4)
Other stuff like this: konami, metal gear solid 4, playstation 3
I think they will wait to see how the launch pans out. But really, you just never know these days. They may have already laid the groundwork for porting it over, "just in case."
If they bring it to the 360, there will be a meltdown of epic perportions within the Sony-faithful ranks.
...and it will be gloriously funny...
If they bring it to the 360, there will be a meltdown of epic perportions within the Sony-faithful ranks.
...and it will be gloriously funny...
The quote is bit vague. Is that it must sell a million worldwide or just in a specific region?
Worldwide: Maybe.
US only: I can't see it happening. 3 struggled to sell that much in it's first month, and too many people got burned by 2's character switch.
JP only: Not even a snowball's chance in hell (MGS is not exactly popular there).
Euro: When did dame devs/pubs start to think about euro gamers?
The simple fact that remains is that games cost a lot of money to make and a single platform release is out of the question for most games. There are exceptions for a variety of reasons (proper budgeting, project scale, moneyhats from heaven), but MGS4 doesn't strike me as one that can escape this reality. The game is clearly over budget and too big for it's own good, resulting in multiple delays. I'm a huge MGS fan, but even I can realize that Snake is not what he once was, especially on a platform that isn't exactly flying off shelves.