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Namco Bandai on Thurs. said that it must sell a half million copies of the game for Sony Corp.’s Playstation 3 in order to make a profit.

Sony dropped the PS3 to U.S. retail on Nov. 17.

Namco Bandai President Takeo Takasu told Bloomberg that at least 500,000 copies per titles worldwide must be sold for the Japanese publisher to profit. He added Namco Bandai PS3 titles are selling well.

Namco Bandai released two game offerings for the PS3 at launch, including Ridge Racer 7 and Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire.

The games are the top two selling PS3 titles in Japan.

Publishers are cautious on PS3 game sales due to the shortage of consoles at retail worldwide. Sony is estimated to have sold about 81,000 units in Japan during launch and 250,000 in the U.S. It expects to ship 2 million by year-end.

Meanwhile, Nintendo Co. this week announced that it has shipped 600,000 of its Wii video game system. The console, which employs low cost technology, is more cost-effective to produce game titles for.

Takasu said that graphics for high-definition games cost about $8.6 million to create, or more than double that of titles for Wii.