Heavenly Sword didn't make a profit

NewsPosted 30/03/2010 - 9:06am GMT+1

One and a half million copies not enough to break even.

According to Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades, the studio's PS3 exclusive Heavenly Sword didn't sell well enough to turn a profit, leading the studio to broaden its potential market by turning multi-platform.

"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,"Antoniades told CVG.

"The publisher potentially breaks even at that point, but the developers don't."

The large installed base of the Xbox 360 made it a platform impossible to ignore, explained Antoniades.

"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?" he said.

Ninja Theory's Enslaved is scheduled for release in the autumn for PS3 and Xbox 360.

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User Comments

noisetank101

Enslaved...amazing. Better than HS. but it did even worse. only 1/2 mil sold :(

Posted 05:35 on 23 April 2011

clangod

...and the part where you're up on the catapaults taking out the masses of enemies was good fun also.

Posted 14:57 on 31 March 2010

RAGE_OF_THORN

To me, this game had great production value, but just fell short of being special, it was too simple and the story just didnt quite live up to its built up backstory. Graphics were bad arse though.

Basically you came into the game like longing for a meal after starving in the woods for a week, therefore expecting and hoping for a 5 course meal, and insteaed you got a real bad serving of fast food. It just left you like like someone put laxirives in you food and drink, it didnt last long, and never really hit the spot.

Posted 06:24 on 31 March 2010

I quite liked it too. Not usually like me but it was presented very well so I still have it. Fave part if memory serves me well (haven't played it for ages) is on the bridge where you fire arrows and use arrow cam to guide them to your targets. Simple but effective break to the usual hack 'n' slash gameplay. Tis a shame to learn it didn't do well.

Posted 22:29 on 30 March 2010

renegade @ ghostdog25

To be fair to Heavenly Swords it was basically a launch game, and Gow 3 was made not only 3 years later but by Sony on their own hardware

Posted 21:55 on 30 March 2010

Clockpunk

I hope Enslaved does well - looks like a fantastic game, and one I'm tempted to preorder...

Posted 20:11 on 30 March 2010

tsep23

HS was a great game. One of the PS3 greatest hits. fighting mechanics were very much like God of War 3. I'd rank Heavenly Sword somewhere between GOW3 and Dante's Inferno. HS had a great story too. Going multiplatform is definitely bad news for PS3 owners though. Instead of working with a 60GB Bluray disk the developers now have to worry about fitting it into the 360's 5 GB DVD. Less space means less content. Less content means less bang for your buck. Take God of War 3 for example. That game had over 30GB of information on the disk.

Posted 19:51 on 30 March 2010