Namco Bandai' s Takasu Says PS3 Game Titles Must Sell 500,000

By Masaki Kondo

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Namco Bandai Holdings Inc., Japan' s second-biggest maker of video-game software, must sell at least half a million copies of a game for Sony Corp.' s PlayStation 3 console to make money on the title, said President Takeo Takasu.

Graphics for the high-definition games cost about 1 billion yen ($8.6 million) to create, more than double that for Nintendo Co.' s Wii titles, Takasu said in a Tokyo interview Nov. 28.

``We have to sell at least 500,000 copies per title worldwide to make a profit on PlayStation 3 games,' ' said Takasu. He said titles for the new Sony console are ``selling well.' '

Shortages of the PlayStation 3 may also make it more difficult for software makers to sell enough games. Tokyo-based Sony halved shipment targets for the console this year and delayed the European release amid a dearth for some parts. The company may have missed its goal of shipping 400,000 consoles in the U.S. earlier this month, according to analysts including Jeetil Patel at Deutsche Bank Securities in San Francisco.

``Game makers may hesitate to make games for a console if its shipment is being delayed,' ' said Yuuki Sakurai, who helps manage $6.02 billion at Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Tokyo. ``Some game makers may wait until a console becomes popular because of increasing production costs.' '

Tokyo-based Namco Bandai expects games for the consoles introduced this month by Sony and Nintendo and a year ago by Microsoft Corp. to account for 10 percent of software sales, or 3.15 million units, this fiscal year ending March 31, Takasu said. The company sold about 26,000 titles for Microsoft' s Xbox 360 last year, when it was introduced.

Namco Bandai developed two titles, the ``Ridge Racer' ' car racing series and the latest ``Gundam' ' shooting game, for Sony' s PlayStation 3' s Japan debut on Nov. 11, and will introduce four titles for Nintendo' s Wii this weekend. The Wii offers a motion- sensor controller without high-definition graphics.

Shares of Namco Bandai fell 0.3 percent to 1,734 yen as of 1 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

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Ouch 500.000, thats really bad news, and it will destory niche games!

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If THAT were true, I' d be all over the PS3! The Saturn had some truly kick ass games and to this day I' d rather play it than PS1, PS2 and Xbox.

yeah Joe saturn is better than psone and ps2 , xbox all combined , it shits all over themn saturn is the best console i' ve ever seen go go sega you' re in my heart.

That' s because the Saturn became a hardcore gamers apradise! In comparison the PS3 is trying to... to.... to... ahem.

500 000, huh?!

That' s more than I can count on my fingers!

And more than the population of Iceland.

Lucky for them it' s WORLDWIDE and not per region, otherwise only the biggest franchises would survive!

If games like Scarface and 50 Cent Bulletproof can sell a million units then anything is possible...

Good point.

Hmm so it cost more to create ps3 games but how much longer does it takes compared to developing 360 games would be interesting to know as well. If it takes longer to make, cost more to to develop and needs high volume of sales from a small user base, that' s not a very developer friendly environment.

Looking at all the ps3 titles, any exclusive titles (ie non ports) are gonna mean big losses for publishers and developers. THere is no way any of the exclusive games on ps3 launch are gonna sell 500,000 copies worldwide with such a small user base (well unless it was a Zelda title, Zelda TP has sold 454,000 from over 600,000 consoles), and by the time the user base has reached a sufficient size to give then the potential to sell 500k it would be too late as gamer will move on to newer games. Add to this the poor attach rate of 1.5 games per system and it looks like a recipe for disaster for exclusive developers at the moment.

Lets see, say there is 1 million ps3 by years end (although it coulb be as low as 500k)
the attach rate for games at the moment is 1.5 so that means 1.5 million total software sold by years end
between 4 exclusive titles (is there more by years end?) thats 375k MAX (as low as 120k). Thats not taking into account the multiplatform titles either (which is around 10 or so titles)!!
So they won' t be breaking even this year, and by next year new games are gonna be on the market which will make these launch games mostly irrelevant (well maybe not Resistance, but definately the others). Those unfortunate developers are going to be left with a huge bill and a bad taste in there mouth from developing exclusive ps3 games. Lets say this means the potential to port to 360 gets more tempting.

Not extremely bad...but still not good. I wonder how exactly this will play out in the coming months.