Key Info from the German-Ubi Forum Hamburg Preview

[Boris]

I just realised the along with the IL2 series and Lock on, Ubi is a bit of a hero when it comes to sims.
The IL2 series is pretty much the only widely played WW2 fighter sim, and lockon, the only widely played modern sim.... though they have dropped lockon
(I consider CFS3 and F4 to be a bit too old to count this in).

[AJ!]

in all fairness 11,000 copys isnt very big in the games industry.... and half a mil wouldnt justify all hands on deck for a sequel, destroyer command 2. I know the SH series isnt massivly popular in the games industry but development costs and shipping etc would take quite a chunk out of that 500,000 profit.

look at a game like WoW, over 7 mil copies sold worldwide... thats about 7 mil x $50/$40? ... then again they have to keep their servers up and running with a constant leech on profit

Fingers crossed for 30,000 plus customers!

[flintlock]

Originally Posted by AJ!

look at a game like WoW, over 7 mil copies sold worldwide... thats about 7 mil x $50/$40? ... then again they have to keep their servers up and running with a constant leech on profit

Leech on profit?

Hardly.

There's a monthly fee to keep your WoW account active. I'd suggest Blizzard enjoys more profit from the monthly fees than from the sale of the game (even when you factor in costs to maintain the whole infrastructure).

[Sonarman]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Lets do the math on good sales. If we look at SH3 and how many have downloaded just GWX (I believe it was around 11,000), we can logically believe that there are 11,000 players out there(some might have download twice for various reasons). Now, 11,000 potential buyers of SH4 x $49.99(average price of new game)=$549890.00 or over 1/2 a million. I suspect this game will go platnium and Destroyer Command will be on the way

Yes I think those maths are a bit off... on the Indie Game forum East wrote:
"I wasn't dissing UBI on the amount spent - they did it for under 1.2M as I understand (including promotion), "

We must also remember that the $49.99 is a retail price not the money that UBI gets, of that they only actually probably get about $22 (unless you purchase it direct from them). And from that you must deduct marketing, distribution, programmer/artist wages, late night pizzas etc so say that from each copy they actually make $12 now multiply that by the 300,000 worldwide sales and you will be closer to the mark, around $3.6M that should hopefully be enough for a continuation of the series!

[stabiz]

I really hope this game does well, and I will porbably buy it twice, as with SH3.

WoW is one of the first signs of Armageddon, by the way.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by AJ!

in all fairness 11,000 copys isnt very big in the games industry.... and half a mil wouldnt justify all hands on deck for a sequel, destroyer command 2. I know the SH series isnt massivly popular in the games industry but development costs and shipping etc would take quite a chunk out of that 500,000 profit.

look at a game like WoW, over 7 mil copies sold worldwide... thats about 7 mil x $50/$40? ... then again they have to keep their servers up and running with a constant leech on profit

Fingers crossed for 30,000 plus customers!

As I stated, 11000 is the number that have downloaded GWX for SH3. We can probably count on these sailors to purchase SH4(I know I am). Now the other larger mods have not been calculated for download number nor has the vanilla playing guys. Also, other American type WW2 games always do well. Now, SH4 with an American submarine theme, great graphics and well thought out game play.....you got a winner on your hands. The sales will be there.

Guys, my number are just raw if anything. I still believe the sales will be there!

[dean_acheson]

Wow, a new Destroyer Command, that would be wonderful! I still put in the original everynow and then, and think of how cool it could have been.....

[Boris]

Originally Posted by Mikkow

Subsim: Back in June 2005 CNN quoted the NPD Group’s April sales numbers at 26,600 units. Is that accurate? What does Ubisoft claim for sales numbers for SH3 to date?


SH4 Dev Team: The best thing about a simulation title is that the amount of sales tends to remain constant each month. SHIII sells well even one year after its release. We estimate Silent Hunter 3 sold over 300,000 copies worldwide.

Are we ignoring this post? This is much more than 11,000

I think SH4 will do better than 300,000, especially due to likely increased interest in the American market.

[Barkhorn1x]

Originally Posted by Boris

I think SH4 will do better than 300,000, especially due to likely increased interest in the American market.

Agreed that we Americans are a bunch of navel gazing b@st@rds!



That being said it will be nice to sail around w/ English audio and actually understand everything that is said instead of about 30% or so.

Barkhorn.

[Boris]

I hope they have some decent voices. In the preview on GIGA yesterday I swear they sounded just like the SH3 english speech.

[flintlock]

In the preview on GIGA yesterday I swear they sounded just like the SH3 english speech.

Always played SH3 in German, so those English voices will be new to me.

[Boris]

Same here, but I heard them once or twice. The problem is the english voices are lame and don't even sound American. They don't sound German either though. But they did use them in the demo. So I hope they record new ones.
A mix in accents would be cool, some southerners, californians, texans,new yorkers etc.
Maybe we can do a community mod if the voices aren't up to scratch.

[flintlock]

Originally Posted by Boris

Maybe we can do a community mod if the voices aren't up to scratch.

That's actually a great idea. Easily implemented and remedied via a patch.

[badhat17]

Destroyer Command II if SH4 sells enough .....

Did they not say exactly the same thing before about SH3 ?

I won't be falling for that old chestnut this time.

[Boris]

Well if they don't make a DC 2, then they had better do an SH5