I understand the free market, but it's not how you think it works apparently.
The PS3 did horrible for about half of of the 7th generation.
There are ways they could have done better with the PS3, and by lowering the price just because it's not selling has to do with how many consoles you make and plan to sell in the first place.

If a 3rd party ports a game to the Wii U, it would probably cost $3 mil. If they make a game specificly for the Wii U, it would most likely cost $15 million.
$60 a game would require them to sell 50,000 at 3 million, and 250,000 copies at 15 million.
Now, you have to look at how many people have a Wii U. There's about 4 million people that bought the thing and bought a few games already. That's already profit/good news.
People that already have a Wii U are probably going to buy Pikmin 3, but 1/16 of Wii U owners NEED to buy the game for it to break even. Anything after that is profit.

EDIT: I'm not saying you should buy a game based on morals(although the 3rd party for Wii U argument is basically that to many), but if a game needs to sell 250,000 copies to break even, and it gets a "half off" price drop before they meet that threshold, the 250,000 goal becomes a 400,000, and that's only if they sold 50,000 copies or so by the time of the price drop.

Here you go making up numbers again lol

You'll have to find someone else to entertain your hypotheticals today.

It's not hypothetical. It's accounting/financing. If you don't know how these numbers matter, your game isn't going to do well.
If you need to sell 8,000,000(which basically means your game costed over $50 million to develop)copies of a Wii U game with a 4,000,000 Wii U install base, you're not gonna get any compensation for the next year or so. If you need that money sooner than later, it would be wiser to only need to sell 100,000 copies or lower.
Even the 7th gen ports they brought to Wii U only needed to sell approximately 20,000 copies each to break even. 20,000 copies is a small percentage of 4,000,000.

Show me evidence that most games cost the amounts you say they do. Also show me what $60 game had sold less than 50k copies and has been considered successful.

You pull numbers from nowhere. I'm not bothering posting serious replies to assertions governed by hypothetical situations and baseless assumptions. Development costs vary wildly from game to game, and other expenses judge how profitable a game actually is. You just think of a number in your head, apply it to everything, and determine every game that sells X amount of copies is profitable.

I'm not entertaining that line of thinking

If COD Black Ops 2, AC3, Tekken Tag 2, etc. 3rd party ports are prime examples of only needing to sell 20,000 copies to break even.

I already gave proof based on porting info from Ubisoft in a thread you were in and I directly discussed about. That should have already been enough info for you to be able to understand.

I don't make up numbers. The outcome ultimately rides on the chance of how many people will buy your game on a set ammount of people that have a said console.

If a game needs to sell 50,000 copies out of 4 million Wii U owners, the game has a generally good chance of being successful based on probability alone.

We'll have to settle for disagreeing. I do not believe a quote from Ubisoft about one game applies to every game, much less provides info that can lead to conjecture about non-ports.

And I can't recall a publisher ever touting the fact their game sold less than 50k.. Unless there are multiple sources confirming all games cost X amount of money and therefore only Y amount of games need to sell, in addition to sources from publishers happy with <50k sales, there's not much you can do to make me believe otherwise.

That's kinda how I see the Wii U in general..... $700-$800 in games plus system/2-4 hours of play per day.....

@AlexSays @SCAR392 There you two go sounding like a bickering couple again. XD

How can we be lovers if we can't be friends,

How can we start over if the fighting never ends, baby

Hey Scar, I can't believe I missed this earlier, but didn't Ubisoft recently say Zombie U wasn't even close to being profitable? Link found here.

That game sold over 400k copies. According to your math, $15,000,000 (your number) / $40 (average price) = 375,000 copies to break even.

From the numbers available the game sold closer to 500k, but I'll even round down to 450k.

450,000 - 375,000 = 75,000 x $40 = $3,000,000 net profit.

This is assuming Zombie U cost $15,000,000. Highly unlikely considering they said the game didn't cost 'much'. $15 mil is a sizable budget for much larger games, and its pretty unreasonable to assume Zombie U even came close to that mark.

That's also including two instances when I rounded down. 1) average price and 2) total sales. Nearly 500k wasn't 'even close' to being profitable (Ubi words not mine), yet you are claiming games most games cost about $15 mil to make and only 250k sales would make them profitable.

Ubisoft, who you love to run behind, has effectively proven you completely wrong. Even if I round everything in your favor, and assume the game cost a ton more (possibly twice as much) as it actually did, you are still wrong. This is also assuming the fact that the publisher makes 100% off the sale of every game. Of course we know they don't, therefore they must sell even more copies, making you even more wrong. lol

@AlexSays
I wasn't giving EXACT numbers to begin with. It was a REAL SITUATION, but the numbers still fit together as it would.
You make a post claiming to have made up complete numbers. My numbers are made up, but they still fit together for the situation we're talking about. Yours don't, so I don't think you're claim of me being wrong is very justified.

You mixed up actual data with my numbers, that's why it looks like I'm wrong, but you probably won't realize that, and it's ok.

hahahaha

I can agree with that. The only way you are right is if you mix your fictional numbers with more fictional numbers. Throw in real numbers and your entire platform crumbles.

I used your logic and real data. According to you, Zombie U should have been profitable. It wasn't. Therefore your numbers were wrong. Games need to sell more than you claim, and yet you constantly use this faulty information to misinform people on this site.

If ZombiU sold 500,000 copies, that would mean they made $30,000,000, but the ammount they spent to make it is unknown. That's the part of the equation we're missing.

So really, there's no real way to tell, but I think Ubisoft isn't telling the complete story. Based on the numbers specifically for ZombiU, there's basically no way they lost money on the thing, unless they were literally burning money to keep a fire lit.
So actually, you're more wrong than I am, because you used my random numbers to support real numbers.
When I look at ZombiU's sale numbers, I can already tell you how much they made besides the cost to make that gain, not counting discounts, because a company that discounts things are losing money because of themselves.
That's why selling stuff at a loss, and being crappy with your finances is the main culprit for alot of Wii U failure BS.
People are so used to seeing Sony and Apple burning money in their fires, that that is seen as being a good way to run a company.
I've said this before, but Sony is one of the s***iest companies financially in the entire industry, yet people think PS4 is an awesome device.

Dude, it doesn't matter what the hell I say, because you will always think I am wrong. If I told you the sky was blue, you would try to prove me wrong.
I already know I'm right, so maybe you should figure something else out.
Just because you don't understand doesn't mean that I am wrong.

Hahaha so now you think Zombie U cost much more to make, and Ubisoft is flat out lying. Yes, I will totally believe you over a company that says they didn't make money. As everyone else should, I'm sure.

And yeah I know, you've failed pushing your agenda here again so you're going to resort to 'Sony is da worst evar!'. At least you're consistent.

You wouldn't say the sky is blue though. You would say the sky is a shade of color only you are capable of seeing, and it doesn't matter what color everyone else sees.

You provided numbers, they don't work. Rather than admitting they were wrong, you'd like to fall back on 'oh you just don't believe anything'.

You're right, when you completely contradict every known source, I will not believe you. Nobody else on this site should, or does, either.

@AlexSays
I provided numbers that worked with each other, not numbers that work with the ZombiU sales.
I have no clue why you decided to mix ZombiU sale numbers with my numbers.

my brain hurts.

+1

Dat math....numbers.. and long sentences...

tl dr

You said $15 mil was a reasonable amount to assume a game would cost, therefore 250k sales would make them profitable.

Zombie U had twice as many sales, yet was 'not even close' to being profitable. Even if you go the other route and say 'well Zombie U may have cost much more' (which it didn't, we both know this) then you are admitting your initial estimate is not true.

Be consistent. If 15 mil is the number to go by, your logic fails when applied to actual games. If 15 mil isn't the number to go by, everything in your post is purely speculative and has no application to the real world.