Take-Two: PS3 is Biggest Revenue Generator

[Septimus Prime]

I didn't dispute anything you said, but like I said, looks like it's just tracking total sales across all publishers, which says nothing about EA's numbers, which you and Saiyan were arguing about.

[Simplayer]

I'll try to find the statement.

[Simplayer]

Not exactly the source I was looking for, so I'm not sure what value I can put into his word, but:
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread...d=36856&page=4
(note, this isn't ioi, the guy who runs vgchartz)

His conclusion:
For EA, the non-GAAP revenue is the actual sales (units sold) of the platform.

Therefore, if you look at the financial statements for comparison of game sales, you should look at the non GAAP revenue.

Therefore the "real" numbers for the Jun 2008 quarter was:

X360 = 81 million
PS3 = 68 million
Wii = 39 million

Conclusion: Last quarter for EA, the XBox Platform had the highest revenue, while the Wii had the lowest revenue.

So the 360 still generates more revenue for EA (to be expected), but the PS3 software is selling quite well for them considering the installed base difference (units/installed base in PS3 favour).

[mightypen]

A fine example of a terribly run company.


yikes. glad I'm not a stock owner.

[Terjyn]

NPD is US only.

Financials from companies come from world-wide sales.

His conclusion:
For EA, the non-GAAP revenue is the actual sales (units sold) of the platform.

I read that. I also know it doesn't really matter if the money comes from the sales of the games or not. No matter where it comes from, the PS3 generates more revenue than the 360.

GAAP revenue might even be better for EA, because apparently they don't have to make a product to get that money. :P

[Ascended_Saiyan]

http://news.spong.com/article/16529/...s_Money?cb=369

Only 2% difference between all of the console platforms revenue.

[Simplayer]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

NPD is US only.

Financials from companies come from world-wide sales.



I read that. I also know it doesn't really matter if the money comes from the sales of the games or not. No matter where it comes from, the PS3 generates more revenue than the 360.

GAAP revenue might even be better for EA, because apparently they don't have to make a product to get that money. :P

True enough on the world wide thing, but the EA financials here are world wide.

The reason for culling the data down to non-GAAP only is because EA calculates the GAAP value for Sony (and Nintendo) differently than they do for Microsoft. Otherwise it's an unfair comparison.

I'm not sure the reason why it's calculated differently though.

[Simplayer]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

Then, you use Kotaku as a source. Contradict yourself much?

Might want to re-read that there. I'm not Septimus.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by Simplayer

Here's a comparison of 3rd party sales on all 3 platforms.

http://kotaku.com/5034951/heres-that...-you-requested

This chart shows Nintendo claiming they sold 7.5 million 3rd party games during December of 2007, with only one game cracking the top 10 of NPD, with 613,000 sales on that title.

They are asking me to believe that hundreds of shovelware titles sold in the tens of thousands.

Pardon me while I laugh at *anyone* who believes Nintendo's chart.

Either it's world-wide (which still isn't believable to me) or Nintendo pulled some marketting magic out of their butt.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by Simplayer

True enough on the world wide thing, but the EA financials here are world wide.

The reason for culling the data down to non-GAAP only is because EA calculates the GAAP value for Sony (and Nintendo) differently than they do for Microsoft. Otherwise it's an unfair comparison.

I'm not sure the reason why it's calculated differently though.

The fact that it's calculated differently is irrelevant. Over time it is guaranteed to add up, or EA will be prosecuted for fraud.

[Simplayer]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

This chart shows Nintendo claiming they sold 7.5 million 3rd party games during December of 2007, with only one game cracking the top 10 of NPD, with 613,000 sales on that title.

They are asking me to believe that hundreds of shovelware titles sold in the tens of thousands.

Pardon me while I laugh at *anyone* who believes Nintendo's chart.

Either it's world-wide (which still isn't believable to me) or Nintendo pulled some marketting magic out of their butt.

That's NPD data. If it was wrong NPD would have said something.

And generally, yes, top 10 data isn't indicative of the market as a whole.

[Simplayer]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

The fact that it's calculated differently is irrelevant. Over time it is guaranteed to add up, or EA will be prosecuted for fraud.

Over time is the key. We'll find out by the end of their fiscal 2009 (or 10 or whatever year they're using).

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by Simplayer

That's NPD data. If it was wrong NPD would have said something.

And generally, yes, top 10 data isn't indicative of the market as a whole.

They never said it was NPD data.

They said it was "based off NPD data".

That's a completely different statement.

The Wii only had ~300 releases at that time. Minus the one title which was in the top and sold 600K, every single one of those 300 releases would have had to average 23,000 copies sold. Bull. Nintendo lied.

*EDIT* Transposed numbers.

[Simplayer]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

They never said it was NPD data.

They said it was "based off NPD data".

That's a completely different statement.

The Wii only had ~300 releases at that time. Minus the one title which was in the top and sold 600K, every single one of those 300 releases would have had to average 32,000 copies sold. Bull. Nintendo lied.

No, it said "Source:NPD".

[AranhaHunter]

Originally Posted by Simplayer

Not exactly the source I was looking for, so I'm not sure what value I can put into his word, but:
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread...d=36856&page=4
(note, this isn't ioi, the guy who runs vgchartz)

His conclusion:
For EA, the non-GAAP revenue is the actual sales (units sold) of the platform.

Therefore, if you look at the financial statements for comparison of game sales, you should look at the non GAAP revenue.

Therefore the "real" numbers for the Jun 2008 quarter was:

X360 = 81 million
PS3 = 68 million
Wii = 39 million

Conclusion: Last quarter for EA, the XBox Platform had the highest revenue, while the Wii had the lowest revenue.

So the 360 still generates more revenue for EA (to be expected), but the PS3 software is selling quite well for them considering the installed base difference (units/installed base in PS3 favour).

1) Your link goes to a forum user who may or may not be credible (most likely not since he's not on a known site for insiders)
2) Anything vgchartz is not credible to me anyways, so I'm sorry but I don't find this particular post holds any relevance for the discussion in hand.

[Terjyn]

And you could slap "Source:NPD" on something that is based off NPD data as well.

Paramount said that NPD was their source when they made up HD DVD numbers for Transformers too.

Come on, tell me you don't believe every one of 300 shovelware titles sold 23,000 copies? You can't possibly be THAT naive can you?

How the hell can anyone believe that?

Kotaku attributes it to Guitar Hero III.

During this month Guitar Hero III sold somewhere less than 600K copies on the Wii. Even if I give GH3 600k copies, putting it right below Mario & Sonic Olympics, the average for the other 299 games would still have to be 21,000 copies per title.

They are asking people to believe that most game retailer in the US was selling THOUSANDS of 3rd party Wii titles alone!

[Terjyn]

As an aside, I was being quite generous saying they had 300 titles.

They only have 408 titles now, and that includes Nintendo titles. The data just gets more and more unbelievable.

[Terjyn]

One last point before I stop harping on it.

By the end of that same month of December, the Wii had only sold ~7.8 million consoles per NPD.

Which basically means Nintendo's chart claims that every single Wii owner in existence averaged one 3rd party title. And did it in the same time frame as the release of Super Mario Galaxy.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Simplayer

Source?

Originally from Forbes.

* 25% (aka $15) goes to pay the art and design guys.
* 20% ($12) goes to pay the programmers and the engineers.
* 20% (also $12) goes to your friendly neighborhood retailer.
* 11.5% ($7) goes to a "Console Owner Fee"
* 7% ($4) goes to marketing
* 5% ($3) goes to "market development"
* 5% ($3) goes to actually manufacturing and packaging the disc.
* 5% ($3) is spent paying the Man for IP licenses or maybe hiring some big name voice actors.
* 1.5% (just $1) goes into the publisher's pocket.
* 1.5% (also $1) goes into the distributor's pocket.
* 0.3% (about 20 cents) goes into corporate costs. Management, overhead, lawyers, etc.
* 0.05% (less than 3 cents) go into the cost of paying for the Developer's Hardware.

For Console Owner Fee:

The fee can be waived for exclusivity to a platform--that will buy you a kickback.

Here is Carmack talking about it. He doesn't get specific with the amount of difference. Notice he is talking about MS hefty royalty fee and not Sony's. He mentions the cost of multiple discs, THEN he talks about MS's hefty royalty fees. Also, note that he is trying to get MS to waive some of the fee.

Plus, how else would you explain these revenues on the PS3 when the X360 sells more units? All publishers care about is how much money they are getting...not the number sold.

[Simplayer]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

And you could slap "Source:NPD" on something that is based off NPD data as well.

Paramount said that NPD was their source when they made up HD DVD numbers for Transformers too.

Come on, tell me you don't believe every one of 300 shovelware titles sold 23,000 copies? You can't possibly be THAT naive can you?

How the hell can anyone believe that?

Kotaku attributes it to Guitar Hero III.

During this month Guitar Hero III sold somewhere less than 600K copies on the Wii. Even if I give GH3 600k copies, putting it right below Mario & Sonic Olympics, the average for the other 299 games would still have to be 21,000 copies per title.

They are asking people to believe that most game retailer in the US was selling THOUSANDS of 3rd party Wii titles alone!

Yes, but then they can be sued if they're going to blatantly lie like that.

Even if you consider the stuff on Wii "shovelware", many people don't. Carnival Games (a shit game) sells quite well.

Is it hard to imagine all their titles selling 21,000 each, sure. Is it that hard to imagine a few of them sold 500,000, more 400,000, and more 300,000, etc? Not really.

If you have evidence that they're lying, by all means, show it though.