A publisher can take $15-20 from a sold portable game. SE in particular near $20. Factoring in license, marketing and production costs that's around $4-8 in that $20. With $9.99 on the App store publishers are taking 6.99 from each sale. In other words, publishers still have to sell a whole lot more in order to reach a same figures target from DS sales. EDIT: Also, you're working under the assumption that because there are no production costs publishers will pass on the savings to you, the consumer. Publishers rarely do that, especially SE what with their SE tax applied to DS games (basically their games are sold for $5 more than any other DS game simply because SE want to). I can bet you that if SE could they would charge more than 9.99 on the App store for FFI.
I'm sorry, but your math doesn't compute? You're saying a dev can make more of a return on an iPhone sale than a DS sale however they would have to make more sales in order to reach the same sales targets? Or maybe I'm not reading it correctly...you're saying that out of that $20 only $4-$8 can cover licensing, marketing, and production costs leaving a dev to recoup - at worst - $12 per $20 title? Okay, now lets' remove marketing and cart/UMD licensing costs and price the game at $10. Publisher makes $7 from each sale however NONE of that has to go towards format licensing or marketing outside of putting a link on the publisher's website. Now what if developing a new iPhone game cost just as much to develop but there were almost no marketing or licensing costs? No need to pay for cardboard boxes, no need for shiny plastic carts, etc. Then the rest - outside of Apple's 30% - is pure profit. Let's say they spend $10,000 on a fairly big title for the iPhone. They would only need to sell a measly 1,400 units of the game in iTunes to completely recoup their investment - and that's already taking into account Apple's 30% cut. And there's no need for the additional overhead worries such as marketing and distribution or dealing with anything other than Apple's review process. Now, let's run the numbers just for 2009: ~27.5 million iPhones sold. That's not taking into account any iPod Touch sales. They only need 1,400 out of 27.5 MILLION iPhone owners to spend $5 on their game to break even and any additional sales outside of that is just gravy. And there's no need to worry about dealing with the various wholesalers, Walmarts, Game Stops, etc. No need to worry about dealing with physical inventory whatsoever. No need to pay a bunch of people to deal with that either. You have no idea the additional savings SE will see just over NOT having to deal with those headaches. Face it, Apple got portable digital software distribution RIGHT. Sony's still mucking about (and screwing it all up most of the time) and Nintendo is still pretty much a babe in the woods (download stations?!?!) The big problem is that SE just hasn't bothered to look at the iPhone as much more than a casual gaming platform to see that it really is a direct competitor to the DS or PSP. They're getting there though. I figure the day some 3rd-party hardware manufacturer releases an 'iPhone Gamepad" that gives actual tactile buttons to an iPhone via a case - or bluetooth remote - gaming pad then it will really take off. I'm not working under any assumptions that they will pass on the savings to consumers. This isn't Walmart or Big Lots or used cars. I'm working on the assumption that higher pricing = low sales = less ROI and that lower pricing = higher sales = more ROI. You know, basic business logic...that old chestnut. Looking at all the titles SE has released in the app store, they're not going to release just FF 1 for more than $10, period since none of their other games have been released for more than $10. They're figuring out the sweet spots in pricing for certain titles just like any other developer. I think it will be released at $4.99 ea. for both 1 & 2.
What do you find so funny? Mirrors? Want to know where that $10,000 number comes from? Well, obviously it comes from my butt but there is a certain logic to it. 1) Buying several Macs to develop on. And we all know that NONE of those are cheap. 2) Paying developers a salary to do nothing but work on the iPhone game. They're paid even it's been submitted and they're sitting on their asses doing nothing but waiting. 3) Utility bills - you know, floorspace rent, electrical, water, heating/cooling, etc. 4) Paying testers. 5) Paying the initial $100 "Apple Tax" to get in the dev program. They've probably already recouped their losses on this one though, through previously-released titles. So actually, $10,000 is pretty cheap. It's probably twice that.
No, what I am saying is out of a $35 (£30) game a publisher like SE is getting $20 (£17). That means even when other costs take their cut (marketing, prouduction, etc) SE are still taking in $15-$16 (£13-£14) per sale. In comparison, SE on the App store would take in $6.99 (£4.19) per sale from the top price allowed which is $9.99 (£5.99). A DS game selling 500k copies with a publisher take in of $20 amounts to $10 million. For SE to match that $10 million figure on the app store with their $6.99 take in the game would need to sell over a million (around 1.3 million) copies. That is what I am talking about and that is why big publishers like SE (especially in Japan and UK / Europe markets) still prefer the retail market, not just because it is more prominent but because they can take in a much higher revenue / profit stream so they only need to sell 500k copies rather than a million to make the same amount. They can't be having much headaches considering they're swimming in money due to the higher intake of retail game prices. In Japan and the UK / Europe games are more expensive and thus they take even higher cuts than in the US. So when a game sells 4 million (like DQIX) and SE are taking around $30 per game (the game is sold for $65 in Japan) and that is when retailer / marketing / production / license has already got their cut... yeah. I don't need to face anything, so why the attitude? What I am saying is DD isn't the be-all, especially for large publishers that rake in lots due to the higher revenue intake of retail game prices. If you say so, but the ever increasing sales of overall hardware and software sales for DS (2009 was its biggest, despite being out five years already) says otherwise to your competition remark. Except that is flawed logic as well, and developers on the app store have even stated this. When you place your game at 0.99 you have to sell a hell of a lot more to make your costs back when compared to 1.99. Simply lowering the price does not automatically guarantee your sales will considerably increase. That is why we now see many a developer on the App store trying to resist dropping their prices to a low amount because often is the case they end up shortchanging themselves. Except not in this case.
I would enter the math crunching argument but GDsage summarized it greatly. That's probably a main reason why SE will never port there newer ds titles to the iPhone anytime soon is because of the way the application store's supply and demand price policies, apple's 30 to 40% cut and not having more price control over there product compared to the ds's bigger userbase and people buying up SE games at the SE tax with no complaints compared to the moaning and groaning of prices here in the iPhone forum. Until apple dethrones nintendo and sony's marketshare in the portable gaming market, don't expect SE and other big name publishers to drop any port or mainstream games no matter how old they are to less than 9.99 or even up to the 0.99 cent barrier that most users here think games should be priced at. Thank god most of them don't run a gaming business with that flawed business logic.
My lord, where to begin. I know that we're all pulling numbers out of our butt, but there's such a thing as being delusional. Square Enix's operating margin (net profit) last year 4.95%; there's not way in hell that they're clearing $15 per $35 dollar DS retail sale. Absolutely no chance. First of all, most DS and PSP games are still sold in retail stores. Starting with the standard 50-100% mark-up, it's likely that SE is selling each $35.00 copy wholesale for about $20-$25 dollars (most likely less). Subtract from that management, creative development, writing, design, production, coding, QA, testing, and you're easily down to $10-15 per copy. Then include marketing, which is easy as expensive as the actual production, and you're down to $5-$7 per copy. And that's only if the game actually sells well. But all of that is moot: real business people don't think in terms of how many dollars they get per copy sold. They think about risks and returns. High risk investments (for example, the production of a brand new FF title with a Hollywood-sized budget) are only sensible when there's an decent chance of a high return. Lower risk investments (for example, a port of an existing DS or PSP title to the iPhone) are attractive if they can deliver consistent returns. Considering that App Store releases have no retail costs (beyond Apple's 30%) and tiny marketing budgets, ports to the iPhone can be very attractive, as long as the production budget can be kept reasonable. That is why we won't be seeing any new major iPhone titles from SE, and why (here I agree with you, GDSage) updated IPs -- which represent large investments -- will almost certainly get the DS or PSP treatment before they are ported to the iPlatform. The point, ultimately, is that just because SE can charge more for DS games doesn't mean that, as a whole, they're a more attractive investment than an iPhone port of the same game.
That figure I'm giving is including the actual development of the game. I did not say that figure took into account development costs nor that intake is pure profit, mainly because such a figure as development costs is more variable than any other figure. My only point was the publisher intake thus potential ceiling for profit on average is higher in the retail channel, especially in the UK / Europe and Japan. Add to that a much larger and more established userbase for games for those platforms and you get the reason why games like DQIX is on the DS rather than the App store, because 1) SE can charge and thus take in a huge amount. For example, the main FF and DQ games RRP in Japan are sold at a premium so SE's take in can be around double than what they get for the same release for the rest of the world, which is why a new DQ release is such a big deal for them in addition to it selling millions (which is why 2009 especially is going to be looked at as a huge year for them, come fiscal march). 2) the DD model isn't something the majority of Japanese consumers like. As with their dislike for online gaming compared to local ad-hoc, it just shows their market drives at its own accord rather than fall to whatever whims the rest of the videogame markets of the world does.
Not sure what we are talking about here, but by the time a DS game goes for half-price, half of which goes to Nitendo, some more goes to retailer, etc. an iphone port would be more profitable, no? And would net them some new fans, too. So, it seems to me that FF3 and 4 should have a good chance of hitting the Appstore eventually and hopefully some of their other franchises too. As to exclusive development, yes, the iphone isn't there yet. But as long as we get decent ports of quality games in established genres/franchises and shorter original indy efforts with innovative gameplay we have the best of both worlds, no?
I'm confused: are you or are you not including game development? If you're not, then your analysis is pretty much useless. Development and marketing are the two biggest costs on any game project; a marketing strategy that didn't include them would be considered criminally negligent. I don't disagree with anything you're saying here. But you're assuming that a DS updated edition of a classic FF game is the same thing as an iPhone port of an existing DS game. They're not. The first is a risky endeavor, with high creative, production, coding, and marketing costs and little guarantee of return (games do bomb, after all, even if they're updated version of original hits). The second is much less risky, with no creative costs, limited production and coding costs, and almost no marketing costs (see, for example, GTA:CW). And more important, the game itself is a known quantity: SE already knows how it performed on the DS (or PSP for that matter) and can budget the iDevice project accordingly. So what does that mean? Like Isilel wrote, it's very unlikely that we will see new updated editions debut on the iDevice: FF7 will come out for the DS or PSP well before it comes out on the iPhone. But there's really no reason to believe that, were FF1 and FF2 to be successful, SE would not port existing DS or PSP versions of their classics to the iPlatform. It's a low risk strategy with potentially significant returns. Why would they pass on it?
Guys, don't forget: PSP and DS games always have a resale value. You can sell the cartridges easily after playing the game. I think the companies take that into account. But no iDevice game has or had a resale value ever. Everybody has to buy a copy from the AppStore. This might be one of the reasons why iDevice games are cheaper than console games.
That's one of the main reasons why Sony and Nintendo are so excited about the direct download model. As far as they're concerned, used game sales are taking millions in profit away from them -- much worse than piracy.
FF7 is already out on the PSP on their Playstation Store. Albeit it is an emulated version as the PSP comes with a PSX emulator built in.
Yes... lets do some math.... Say, FF I & II are bundled for the DS at 25$. They have 10.000 customers who are willing to buy. Now 4.000 people buy the new game, thats 100.000$. 3.000 customers wait for a sale and get it at 15$. That's another 45.000$. The last 3.000 customers buy it second hand. No money for S/E. That's a total of 145.000$. Take into account that the cartridges, booklets and cases, shipping and the stores also cost some money. Now for the iDevices. There are 10.000 customers also. 8000 buy it at a bundeled price for 15$. That's 120.000$. 2000 buy it at 10$ on sale. Thats another 20.000$. They have 140.000$ now without paying for cartridges, cases, shipping etc. Apple gets 30%. All the rest is for S/E. And because Apple cares about distribution, S/E has no more work with it (only the customer support). I know, these are just imaginative numbers. But you can tell where's the better deal. Moreover, there is a big competition between dozens of RPGs on the DS and PSP. On the iPhone, we have some titles, too. But yet these are minor titles, even Inotia 2 is not the biggest title compared to FF or DQ. People will gladly accept a true console RPG - even if it is FF I & II - for their iDevices... there will be a massive amount of sales when FF I & II launch. S/E doesn't even need to fear other competitors of their class. Yet.
How many more times are square gonna port the same tired old games, will we be playing FF1&2 on our apple ibrain implants 50 years from now.
Yeah... but imagine to play Doodle Jump for the next 50 years instead of it... and it keeps going "poiiing... poiiing... poiiing..." in your head...
