Monday, November 22, 2010

Gran Turismo 5: The Condundrum

Yes, "The Conundrum" should be a race track, but it isn't.

Sony announced yesterday that Gran Turismo 5 wil be released on November 24. I'm not particularly interested in driving games anymore, but having played past verions of Gran Turismo, there's no doubt in my mind that it will be a genre-defining game.

There's a sub-plot involving Gran Turismo 5, though, that is much more interesting.

This game has been in development by Digital Polyphony for almost five years. Digital Polyphony, according to their website, has "approximately" 110 employees.

I can't translate 5 years X 110 employees and come up with a development budget for the game, but let me settle on the general term "ultra-shitload of mony."

Question: how does Sony ever make their money back by selling GT5 for $60?

Answer: they don't.

That means they have to sell DLC, and lots of it, but it seems that every GT5 interview has always stressed the overwhelming amount of content available in the "standard" game. So what do they hold back to offer as DLC?

I think there's another shoe dropping here, at some point. Either Sony takes a big hit financially, or they lock a significant amount of content on the disc and sell us DLC for several years.

To me, it would be worth it to just offer this ridiculously fantastic product for $60 and take a loss, because the goodwill (and possibly, additional hardware sales) would more than make up for it. But the PS3 era has been nothing short of a financial boondoggle for Sony, so they may not be thinking in terms of goodwill.

Site Meter