Ninja Theory Made No Money on Heavenly Sword

[rees263]

I never played Heavenly Sword. It only costs £10-15 brand new now and I'm still not tempted to buy it. I suppose that's what you get from hanging around on the internet where people hate everything.

I'd have thought that getting 1.5 million units shifted was actually a pretty decent percentage of all PS3 owners at the time though? Compared to the Wii and 360 the PS3 had an embarrassingly small market share back then right?

If that's the case (that it actually sold a lot in relation to total console sales), then it's just really awful business sense. It wasn't the console shifter they thought it would be and they spent to much money making it. I'd have though 1.5 mil sales would be a fine achievement.

A quick check of VGChartz suggests that on release HS had a potential customer base of only 4.5-5 mil PS3 owners out of ~28 million next gen console sales total (360 and Wii about equal on 11-12 mil each)

Spoiler: Link to VGChartz showing total console sales from September - November 2007, when Heavenly Sword was released

http://vgchartz.com/hwcomps.php?cons1=Wii&reg1=All&cons2=PS3&reg2=All&cons3=X360&reg3=All&start=39320&end=39362&weekly=1

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Shit...I played a demo and didn't think it was THAT bad..

The trouble is that whilst it's not that bad it's not that good either. The demo of this was one of the first things I tried on my PS3, and really, it was just bland.

Actually it was the cinematics and characters that made it rather memorable, which is a rather poor excuse in regards to a game. Roach's defeat was one of the few moments from any game that hit my emotional side.

 

[SMOKEMNHALO2001]

sooo, we wont see nariko again?
i want more of her, even if the game is bad.

Ninja Theory has already said they won't do a squeal but since Sony owns the rights Sony can make another if they want.
It's to bad the game didn't sell well enough, honestly I have the game and I think it sucked HARD! That game was nowhere as fun as God of War, to make matters worse I was pumped for this game.

 

[Grampy_bone]

Launch games are almost always crap. In fact the first year of games for any console are usually disappointing. What were Playstation 1 launch titles? Ridge Racer and Battle Arena Toshinden. PS2? Midnight Club and Tekken Tag Tournament. The 360 launched with Call of Duty 2 (!!) and Perfect Dark Zero (LOL!) In fact by launch standards Resistance and Heavenly Sword are actually pretty good. 1.5 million? They should consider themselves lucky to have gotten that many.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Maybe if they told us what Twing-Twang was during the demo, maybe more people would of gotten it...

 

[Firia]

I REALLY enjoyed me some Heavenly Sword, and it's sad to hear that it didn't do as well as it should have. I know my love of a gad isn't enough to pay your employees, Ninja Theory, but I do have much love for your game!

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

If you guys remember ps2 launch with the exception of SSX had some real stinkers. And really ps1 had issues except for Battle Arena Toshinden.

If I were a dev house I would want to be rather be on the tail end of a console cycle rather than the at the lead. Just so much safer when everyone has sunk the money into the hardware already and there aren't some holdouts who are trying to justify a console purchase along with your game.

But in reality most modern games give way too little gameplay vs the development cost. Short games are fine as long as the price reflects the length. Everyone would be better off if there were more World of Goo and Braid and less Heavenly Sword and Lair.

 

[duchaked]

oh well

at the end of the day, I don't really care much for exclusives

it's easy to bash other peoples' preferred platforms for gaming...
unless you have friends (or make some) who have different preferred platforms for gaming
cuz unfortunately we tend to show more respect in person than online (avoid getting punched maybe)
and well, if you do have friends, y'all just share systems anyway haha

(so people steeped in flame wars have no friends? lol idk just saying...)

 

[xqxm]

They should have played more twing-twang and they'd have broken even.

 

[Mr. Mike]

Wait, correct me if I'm mistaken, but did they make a PS3-exclusive title when Sony hadn't paid them money to keep it exclusive? Unless you're getting some deal with the console maker (Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo) then I don't see what the point of making an exclusive is.

 

[Super Toast]

That's a shame. I rather enjoyed it.

 

[Mr. GameBrain]

I think Heavenly Sword was a brilliant pioneer title for the PS3, (I personally enjoyed it), but its a shame Ninja Theory didn't make any cash of it.

Their next game looks spectacular though! Its great to see such a relatively new studio progress as fast as it has, (not too long ago this team would've only have been known for making Kung Fu Chaos, (one of my favourite xbox games actually!)).

I will definately pick up Enslaved when it comes out.

 

[Tonimata]

"because getting to pay your employees is probably really awesome."
Do I detect resented sarcasm in that ?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Shit...I played a demo and didn't think it was THAT bad.

To put it another way: If I had a PS3, I would have likely bought it at some point.

It's not a quality issue. There just weren't enough PS3 owners out there at the time, I believe he's saying.

What were the development costs?

Hell if I know, I don't work at Ninja Theory.

They must've blew half their wad on the cutscenes alone seeing as Andy Serkis was on their payroll aswell as having the mo-cap done by Weta Digital, if I remember correctly.

 

[WhiteTiger225]

Shit...I played a demo and didn't think it was THAT bad.

To put it another way: If I had a PS3, I would have likely bought it at some point.

It's not a quality issue. There just weren't enough PS3 owners out there at the time, I believe he's saying.

Name one great moment from the game....





That silence is why it sold like pissed on pancakes from a homeless man soliciting outside an Ihop XD

 

[Carnagath]

I did rent this back in the day. It looked okay and it played okay, then it started forcing horribly inaccurate motion controls on me in order to do some perfectly accurate targeting, and then it crashed and when I went back my installation was corrupted and my saves were gone. Wow.

 

[shial]

Wait, correct me if I'm mistaken, but did they make a PS3-exclusive title when Sony hadn't paid them money to keep it exclusive? Unless you're getting some deal with the console maker (Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo) then I don't see what the point of making an exclusive is.

Well the problem with a non exclusive is higher development costs. You can share some of the assets such as art work but the game engine would mostly need to be rebuilt, Particularly since the PS3 chip does things is a very odd way so a lot of the stuff they had to put together probably wouldn't translate over easily. This costs a lot of extra money and a small dev firm probably doesn't have the finances to pull that off.

 

[TxMxRonin]

Is that why this game is STILL $60? I go to several stores that sell games and if they do have Heavenly Sword it's always $60 despite it being over two and a half years old by now. You'd think it'd be a greatest hits game by now.

 

[Dorkmaster Flek]

"It's difficult. Heavenly Sword came out pretty early on the PS3, and we sold, I think, a million and a half copies, and that's still not enough as an independent studio to break even," said Antoniades. "The publisher potentially breaks even at that point, but the developers don't ... It's just that when so many people have Xbox - I mean over half the market or more has Xbox 360s - why limit yourself to one platform?"

Wait, you can sell 1.5 million copies of a game and still not make any money?

You see that, Gaming Industry? That is your problem right there.