Your still not focusing on the correct figures. Number of machines sold doesn't equal number of active users or number of software units likely to sell. The figure you need to have in your plan are the total size of the software market (for the territories you will sell to) and the unit sales of games that are similar to the title you want to develop. Just because there are 33 million PS2s out there it doesn't mean that any publisher will be able to sell 33 million units of a particular game because not all owners are active and not all owners will buy a particular genre.

[Edited by - Obscure on April 28, 2005 11:31:08 AM]

Thanks guys! I got some stats yesterday. But it's true (aproxximately :) for US only and for year 2004. Here it is:
Total number of PC games sold (units): 45,000,000
Most popular genres in US in percent from above number:
Action - 30.1%
Sports - 17.8%
Shooters - 9.6%
Family - 9.5%
Racing - 9.4%
RPG - 9%
Fighting - 5.4%

I guess it's for all game market, not for PC only. But it can give an idea about PC market. Right?

Please, help me out. If somebody have info on PC market, please, share it with me. I would appreciate it alot. Im interesting in data on EU (UK, Germany, France, Spain, etc. major countries in the region), S. Korea, Japan, China if possible.

Thanks.

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but since my question falls into the same general category as yours, game statistics, I thought i'd post it here rather than start a new thread.

I was wondering how one goes about determining the profitabilty of offering CDs for a new game as opposed to offering downloads only. The game will be fairly hefty once completed, and i'm sure that the CD would be preferred over a big download for those still stuck with dialup, but is there any way to determine a rough estimate of the returns you can expect from offering it in CD form?

CD production doesn't look cheap from what i've seen, especially in short runs, so i'm just wondering if there's any way to determine what can be expected before investing a large chunk of change.

When we willbe done with our project, first of all I would like to contact online publishers. And then, when such and such number of people will recognise the game and web site of the company, we will sell it via company's web site (download or CD). You can figure out profitability of CD by putting together expenses of manufacturing and delivery that CD. Broadband novadays is not something exotic in US. The price is the same as for dial-up (DSL compare to AOL dial-up). Game on CD always will be more expensive then downloadable one.
From what I have read, CD replication cost from 5,000 to 8,000 for 50,000 units. Depends on what do you want.Do you want 2,3,4,etc. color print on CD? Do you need CD case? Do you need inserts? And so on... I found one Chinese company who do all that stuff and I assume it suppose to be cheaper there. You can try to find somebody who can do replication and other stuff in Mexico of South America, or even you can buy device to do dublication in-house.
In order to get more profit I would go with download vs CD.