Were CDs Cheap to Press in the 90s?

[TheClash603]

I was just thinking about some of the more expensive CD games for the TG16.  These games are very expensive because they are hard to find.  The question I have is why?

I have to imagine that the cost of programming a game, designing the packaging, marketing, etc. was quite expensive.  With that high cost, why only press a few thousand games?  Some estimates are as low as 1,500 to 3,000 copies.

It seems that the cost to press a few hundred games in 2013 is about $500.  Was the cost of pressing CDs in the 90s much higher?  I thought that the transition from cartridge to CD was prompted by two things, more storage and cheaper medium.

If there were a hundreds of thousands of systems sold in the U.S., why not just press 20,000 CDs and spend the extra few thousands of dollars?  If the company already had many thousands of dollars committed to the game, what is a few grand more?

Am I missing something here?  Were CDs very expensive to press in the 90s?

[Tatsujin]

It might have been more expensive back then than it is today, but I still believe that it was still much cheaper than producing HuCards/Turbochips.

[FiftyQuid]

There wasn't internet back then.  You print 20,000 copies then you have to distribute 20,000 copies.  EBGames didn't exist back then, maybe they just didn't get that big an order from Radio Shack.  That's just my guess. 

[nectarsis]

There wasn't internet back then.  You print 20,000 copies then you have to distribute 20,000 copies.  EBGames didn't exist back then, maybe they just didn't get that big an order from Radio Shack.  That's just my guess.  

Funny, the EBGames (and Babbages, etc. that already DID exist) by me had plenty of Turbo

[vestcoat]

By 1999, my high school had ONE band with a CD to sell. Whether this indicates Nineties' replication costs or today's over-saturation of indy bands, I don't know.

[SignOfZeta]

There wasn't internet back then.  You print 20,000 copies then you have to distribute 20,000 copies.  EBGames didn't exist back then, maybe they just didn't get that big an order from Radio Shack.  That's just my guess. 

EBGames most definitely did exist, it's where I bought my Duo. It was just called Electronics Boutique, but same thing.

As for the numbers, yeah, what would you do with 20,000 copies? Turbo was NOT popular. TTI was lucky to sell one copy of a game per store, and there weren't even 1000 EBs at that time. When Dynastic Hero and Godzilla came out the only brick and mortars still carrying Turbo were the Die Hard franchises and perhaps Game Dude. TTI probably sold the vast majority of the games themselves directly and they would have know how many customers they had (very few).

It wasn't that expensive to press CDs. Less than $2 each, but a couple of thousand bucks is still a couple of thousand bucks.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I bought a my games at Babbage's(along with the CD unit), & Toys R Us.  Back then, I didn't even know Radio Shack had them, never went there very often.  There was also Software Etc.  Pretty sure I bought some of my games from them as well.

[SignOfZeta]

Of course people buy stuff at Radio Shack. Lots of people have Grandmas.

[TheClash603]

The question then is how much did it cost to program a game, create packaging, etc?

If it cost tens of thousands of dollars, why even press the game at all if you are going to make less than 3,000 copies?  Wouldn't you be doomed to fail right at the start, because the production run wouldn't be able to turn a profit?

Seems like business 101 is to not advance with a project that cannot make money.

[DragonmasterDan]

The question then is how much did it cost to program a game, create packaging, etc?

If it cost tens of thousands of dollars, why even press the game at all if you are going to make less than 3,000 copies?  Wouldn't you be doomed to fail right at the start, because the production run wouldn't be able to turn a profit?

Seems like business 101 is to not advance with a project that cannot make money.

I remember hearing that a regular CD release (this was in reference to Sega CD including it's giant plastic case rather than the earlier cardboard box releases compared to a Genesis cartridge) cost under 5.00 to manufacture, while a Genesis cartridge at its cheapest for a third party would have been more than double that around 1993.

[Necromancer]

It probably didn't cost 'tens of thousands' to put out stuff like Cotton, Dynastic Hero, or Godzilla, as they're not all that different from the PCE versions and they would've had access to the original code and artwork.  And making CDs was not all that more expensive then than it is now, but why make what you can't sell?  TZD had these titles available for years after TTi went tits up, meaning the meager numbers they did produce was still too many.

A better question is what did it cost to make HuCARDs towards the end?  Unless they were relatively cheap (close to CDs), I don't know how they could make the math work out to make stuff like Tonma and Magical Chase.

[DragonmasterDan]

It probably didn't cost 'tens of thousands' to put out stuff like Cotton, Dynastic Hero, or Godzilla, as they're not all that different from the PCE versions and they would've had access to the original code and artwork.  And making CDs was not all that more expensive then than it is now, but why make what you can't sell?  TZD had these titles available for years after TTi went tits up, meaning the meager numbers they did produce was still too many.

Yep, and as mentioned the only places that were buying those late release games when they were brand new were Electronics Boutique, Babbages, Software Etc, some mom and pop stores and the Turbo Zone mail order. The distribution channel once Toys R us quit buying new TG16 games had really dried up. It was asked earlier by Clash

"If there were a hundreds of thousands of systems sold in the U.S., why not just press 20,000 CDs and spend the extra few thousands of dollars?  If the company already had many thousands of dollars committed to the game, what is a few grand more?"

There weren't hundreds of thousands of CD systems sold in the U.S. A generous estimate might be 50,000 counting all US Duo's and US Super CD system cards. Let's say they printed 1,500 of a game. Doubling that order might actually have eliminated any profit margin. Especially when they knew the distribution needed to sell double the number of copies just wasn't there. With that said I know a second printing of Dungeon Explorer II happened because the initial 1,000 or so apparently had sold out while TTI was still operational. Since they had all the materials (manual design, etc) needed in place it was a "wait and see" approach with regards to printing more than what they felt was a minimum order.

[FiftyQuid]

Funny, the EBGames (and Babbages, etc. that already DID exist) by me had plenty of Turbo

EBGames most definitely did exist, it's where I bought my Duo. It was just called Electronics Boutique, but same thing.

I stand corrected. I remember Electronics Boutique, I think we had one, but I don't remember them selling Sega, Nintendo or TG-16.

The only places Turbo existed in my hood back in the day was at Radio Shack (where I bought mine) and Consumers Distributing.  We had a shop called Compucenter that sold console games as well, but it was mainly a shop for personal computers.

Anyone here remember Compaq?  How about Tabworks?  Ha!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TabWorks

[vestcoat]

Fifty - you're in Canada right? There were differences there and in the U.S. If I understand correctly, TG16 games were sold off-the-shelf in Canadian Radioshacks. In the U.S., we had to go to the back of the store and order them out of the parts catalogs. After Toys R Us threw in the towel, EB was perhaps the best mainstream source of late-period TTI games.

[FiftyQuid]

Fifty - you're in Canada right? There were differences there and in the U.S. If I understand correctly, TG16 games were sold off-the-shelf in Canadian Radioshacks. In the U.S., we had to go to the back of the store and order them out of the parts catalogs. After Toys R Us threw in the towel, EB was perhaps the best mainstream source of late-period TTI games.

Yep.  I was going to say I don't remember Toys R Us selling them either, but I can't remember.  I don't even think we had a Toys R Us in my area in the 90's.