The budget was way higher than initially thought: $320M including advertising.
The game sold 10 million copies, only 4 million at full price.
Those 4 million copies made $80M, or $20 per copy, due to the retail cut, packaging/shipping and royalty fees.
The other 6 million copies would need to make $240M or $40 per copy in order for the game to break even, which is impossible as they were sold at a discount.
Some comments disagree on how much money Naughty Dog made from digital sales (due to being a first party studio), but even in the best case scenario, the game would barely break even.
A point that he doesn't bring up is that the European market is subject to a high VAT which hurts margins even more when a game is sold at a discount.
TLDW:
The budget was way higher than initially thought: $320M including advertising.
The game sold 10 million copies, only 4 million at full price.
Those 4 million copies made $80M, or $20 per copy, due to the retail cut, packaging/shipping and royalty fees.
The other 6 million copies would need to make $240M or $40 per copy in order for the game to break even, which is impossible as they were sold at a discount.
Some comments disagree on how much money Naughty Dog made from digital sales (due to being a first party studio), but even in the best case scenario, the game would barely break even.
A point that he doesn't bring up is that the European market is subject to a high VAT which hurts margins even more when a game is sold at a discount.