Nintendo-Friendly Majesco Looks Forward To Natal, Move, Facebook

Since about 2007, Majesco has made Nintendo's Wii and DS its primary focus in reaching the 'tween girls and boys and older female demographic. But now the company is looking forward to new platforms like Microsoft's Project Natal and the PlayStation Move to reach a mass market demographic. "In 2010 and beyond, we're going to extend our platform focus to the 360, the PS3, to the iPhone, Facebook and more," said Jesse Sutton, CEO of New Jersey-based Cooking Mama publisher Majesco. He was speaking Wednesday at the Needham Game Day: Toys, Sports & Interactive Entertainment Conference in New York. Majesco has become known for Wii and DS games like Cooking Mama and Cake Mania, but Sutton said that Majesco is committed to a particular demographic, not a particular platform manufacturer: "We are demographic-focused and platform agnostic," he said. Sutton also said that Majesco products that have already shown success on Nintendo platforms are already well-suited to transfer over to newer platforms. "We are actively involved in product creation" for Natal and Move," said Guy Karyo, VP of operations for Majesco. He said that Majesco's strategy is also lower-risk than publishers that bring in more revenue. "Our products don't take three to five years and $40 to $60 million to produce. Our average time to market is somewhere between nine and 18 months, and our budget tends to be in the $500,000 to $2 million range," Karyo said. The VP said Majesco can achieve profit with much fewer units sold when compared to triple-A hardcore games, and break even with a few hundred thousand units sold per game. Titles like Cooking Mama and Cake Mania that sell well beyond a few hundred thousand units are "highly profitable" for the company, he said. Sutton said Jillian Michaels' Fitness Ultimatum on Wii did around $18-$19 million in sales last fiscal year. Down the line, though, we could see Majesco bring its successful Wii and DS brands to the high-definition consoles, as input methods and price tags become more mass market friendly. "The trend on [social networks, Xbox 360, and PS3] is gearing towards the demographic that we've been focused on in the last four years," said Sutton.