CAPCOM: Next-gen to royally pwn Gimp...

Capcom have announced their sales fiscal 07 predictions for RE4, RE:UC and DMC4...

RE4 - 420,000 (worldwide)
RE: UC - 620,000 (worldwide)

DMC4 - 1,800,000 (worldwide)

LINK

RE4 is out now, DMC4 won' t hit until October/November, ...and i don' t know when UC is due but i' m guessing before DMC.

in fairness there is only one title there people havent played before.

Change is inevitable. Except from a vending machine.

Viva La Revolution! erm, I mean Viva La Wii!

If big 3rd party exclusives like Umbrella Chronicle aren' t going to sell in the kind of numbers that next-gen games do then where do you think publishers priorities will lie?

UC is not the same ballpark as devil may cry 4, definitly not... in addition US wil be released only on wii, while the dmc4 number is PC , ps3, and 360, it doesn' t really matter except that in the case of devil may cry, you should add the cost of porting the game to each platform + the royalties for each platform bar PC... all in all it' s not that bad as it might look ...really

If sales of DMC4 are to be split between three platforms, then the Wii release is predicted to sell more.

UC is not the same ballpark as devil may cry 4, definitly not... in addition US wil be released only on wii, while the dmc4 number is PC , ps3, and 360, it doesn' t really matter except that in the case of devil may cry, you should add the cost of porting the game to each platform + the royalties for each platform bar PC... all in all it' s not that bad as it might look ...really

Hm, yeah. Good points. Besides that, according to the developers, development costs for 360 and PS3 are generally much higher than those for Wii.

By the way, these are only (more or less accurate) predictions. I thought the policy on the forum was to only go after quarterly reports usually? ;) Well, that' s what I' ve read when it came to Wii sales at least here and there.

sorry YS but those have nothing to do with monthly sales...

I know and I think you misinterpreted my post maybe? Since I agreed with your post.

What I meant was that the predictions in the original post are just that in the end, predictions. And that I' ve noticed that people on this forum don' t usually like predictions being mentioned. With only official sales figures being taken into account. The quarterly reports of the Wii was just an example of this attitude and not related to the predictions or any other report. I just got a feeling that mentioning sales estimates seemed to be frowned upon otherwise. And this is totally of topic :P

And that I' ve noticed that people on this forum don' t usually like predictions being mentioned. With only official sales figures being taken into account

you see that' s where the miss understatement is, forcasts sales are rarely posted in the forum , however lately there was some posts of actual sales figures , weekly or monthly and that' s why some people got fed up .

in that case, this is forecast sales, so it' s not something usually posted here.

anyway, try to show up more often man, this forum starts cruelly lacking of members. it' s almost getting boring... where is the greek guy, he was so entertaining..

You know, the truth of the matter is this -- there is a big backlash against sales figures here when they show that the Wii is hugely successful, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

(For the record, I own an X360, not a Wii. And I happen to enjoy analyzing sales figures. But maybe that' s just because I am one of the few users here who predicted the Wii to be a serious contender. And my sense of identity does not hinge precariously on the elitism of being a self-proclaimed ' hardcore' gamer, although I have been gaming since ' 79.)

More specifically on topic, though, this thread was created to mock Capcom' s internal projections of sales on a Wii title but as we' ve noted, the actual prediction when distributed across all platforms is that the Wii title is expected to sell more units.

You know, the truth of the matter is this -- there is a big backlash against sales figures here when they show that the Wii is hugely successful, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

(For the record, I own an X360, not a Wii. And I happen to enjoy analyzing sales figures. But maybe that' s just because I am one of the few users here who predicted the Wii to be a serious contender. And my sense of identity does not hinge precariously on the elitism of being a self-proclaimed ' hardcore' gamer, although I have been gaming since ' 79.)

More specifically on topic, though, this thread was created to mock Capcom' s internal projections of sales on a Wii title but as we' ve noted, the actual prediction when distributed across all platforms is that the Wii title is expected to sell more units.

Whenever multiplatform titles or ports sells better on one platform considering the console marketshare, it usually means that the choice of games on the console is crap.

i' ll explain about the situation of the wii and the sales figure:


let' s ask the first question , Why people are generally interested in sales hardware?

Usualy because people think that if the hardware sales, it will attract developers to release their games on that console since there is a larger installed based than the other consoles. This rule was applied for at least 3 generations and it was true since the structure of the competition was almost the same, three or two consoles offering almost the same capabilities with minor differences in the control, even the xbox which was more powerful than ps2 was still considered in the same ballpark.


Today this rule CANNOT be carried to this generation, why? the wii is significantly different than the ps3 and the 360, much less powerful and the control is totaly different in many cases. In fact , wii is targeted to a different market than what the 360 and ps3 is.

Therefore, Wii will attract games not targeted to the 360 or ps3, the evidence is already here, a lot of party games and family games.

When developers see those sales figures, the question they ask themselves, How many of those people will buy our games ??
Since the Wii is marketed heavily to dad and grand ma (not to the hardcore gamer) will my grand ma buy Meatl gear on wii if it gets released? will dad (40 year old as a sample) buy Devil may cry on wii ? NOT LIKELY.

if in 2009 the install base is as follow:

xbox360 25 million

Wii: 40 million

PS3: 15 million

As a director of Capcom i would focus on releasing devil may cry 5 on 360 and ps3:

First: People who bought wii are Mostly casual gamers unless if they are on a budget or own one of the other consoles, also some of them are just having interest in party games and have fun with friends for a bit of time. Therefore:

40 million wii WOULD buy 1 million copies of DMC 5
25 million 360 Would buy 3 million copies of DMC 5

Second:

You can also add that it is always possible to port the game to ps3 and even PC with additional cost but still genretaing much more profit , in total the same game Would be sold :

1 million copies on Wii
but up to 5 million copies for all consoles PS3, 360 , and you might add PC.

i' m trying to be realistic in my estimations for a big name such as devil may cry 5.


Therefore as you can see, hardware sales figure Might not Show anything important on the surface... you should carefuly analyze it and see what are the kind of games that are sold on each platform. 3rd parties already understood that, that' s why we see " serious games" head to ps3 and 360, while the wii get more spin offs and a lot of party games.


We will eventualy see some serious games on wii from 3rd parties but they will eventualy be scarce, those developers will invest their time and money because there is not a tough competition on the system, so even if most of the user base is just casual gamers, the wii hardcore gamers will buy their games as there is not many choices.

ORIGINAL: Zoy

More specifically on topic, though, this thread was created to mock Capcom' s internal projections of sales on a Wii title but as we' ve noted, the actual prediction when distributed across all platforms is that the Wii title is expected to sell more units.

Yeah, as long as Umbrella Chronicles is released in November with Devil May Cry. But i kinda doubt it' ll show up that late.

Also, if the game is beng ported to PC after the console versions are released, then projected PC sales likely wouldn' t be included in the fiscal 07 predictions. Going of previous Capcom PC releases, it' ll be at least 6 months after the console versions are released before the PC game hits shelves.

you see that' s where the miss understatement is, forcasts sales are rarely posted in the forum , however lately there was some posts of actual sales figures , weekly or monthly and that' s why some people got fed up .

in that case, this is forecast sales, so it' s not something usually posted here.

anyway, try to show up more often man, this forum starts cruelly lacking of members. it' s almost getting boring... where is the greek guy, he was so entertaining..

I' ve read these forums (and site) for a long time actually. But I finally joined when Kikizo had an article about Shenmue III. I' m more of a regular at another forum though and divide some time between Kikizo and two other forums then. It' s a cool forum though here. So I post from time to time when I have something to say that resembles being (mildly) interesting and/or relevant ;)

Its only a prediction so i don' t really care too much, but have you considered this angle?-

Maybe those amounts are how many they need to sell to ' break even' on developing said games.

We all know that the Wii has much lower development costs compared to 360 or ps3, and RE4 is just a remake so no real development costs should be applicable.

SO they say they predict to sell 1,800,000 copies of DMC4. HMMM, So lets pretend for a sec that we are Capcom. As Capcom lets predict we sell far less then is needed to recoup the development costs. I don' t think so. In otherwords they need to sell that many to profit of DMC4 (On both 360, and ps3 i imagine). That would explain also why RE4 has such a low prediction - its an old title that only requires the least in development costs. And explain why RE:UC is predicted to sell a little more.

Remember the same theory applies to the Wii games. Why would they continue to develop the game if it will make a loss? They wouldn' t - if they predicted there was no profit in RE4 or RE:UC then they would not proceed.

Also consider that RE:UC isn' t the hotly anticipated RE5, the direct sequel to highly acclaimed RE4, but DMC4 is the direct sequel in the DMC series.

If looking at the numbers it would easy to assume that CApcom don' t expect much from the Wii, when you put things in perspective things aren' t as clear cut as you make them out to be.

How many other developers could sell a million copies of a rail-shooter and a rehash?

ORIGINAL: Terrak

If looking at the numbers it would easy to assume that CApcom don' t expect much from the Wii, when you put things in perspective things aren' t as clear cut as you make them out to be.

No, you' re just up to your usual moron bullshit.

The amount they need to sell to break even on development costs? What the fuck are you talking about? They' re sales predictions for the rest of the fiscal year. That' s how much they expect those games to sell before April 08 you freaking nub. You can' t just make them into what you want them to stand for because you feel like defending Nintendo.

I don' t get this Nintendo advocate bullshit you' ve got going on. It' s like you' re coming into threads that are remotely anti-Wii and spouting complete horseshit, all the while pretending you have a fucking clue. Trust me, you don' t.

RE4 has the lowest projected sales figure because it' s a fucking re-release. Nub. How fucking shocking is that!!! A game, released for a second time, when the original is fully playable on the same console, ...will sell less than if the original never existed? No fucking shit!

And no, RE:UC isn' t RE5, but it' s 100% Wii exclusive, ties into multiple games in one of the industries most successful series, and looks awesome to boot. But if we look at it your way the i guess we can also say the same about Soul Calibur Legends, ...y' know, because it ain' t the " hotly anticipated" Soul Calibur 3, or even whatever becomes of the obviously-gonna-happen Ninja Gaiden game, because it ain' t gonna be the " hotly anticipated" Ninja Gaiden 2.

I mean seriously, where do you come up with this shit?

SO they say they predict to sell 1,800,000 copies of DMC4. HMMM, So lets pretend for a sec that we are Capcom. As Capcom lets predict we sell far less then is needed to recoup the development costs. I don' t think so. In otherwords they need to sell that many to profit of DMC4 (On both 360, and ps3 i imagine). That would explain also why RE4 has such a low prediction - its an old title that only requires the least in development costs. And explain why RE:UC is predicted to sell a little more.

WTF man? as Nitro said, RE:UC will sell more than resident evil 4 because it' s a wii exclusive that was NEVER released before on any console, Resident evil 4 however was released on ps2, gamecube and Pc, you don' t have to be a genius to guess that RE:UC will and SHOULD sell more.

And no, RE:UC isn' t RE5, but it' s 100% Wii exclusive, ties into multiple games in one of the industries most successful series, and looks awesome to boot. But if we look at it your way the i guess we can also say the same about Soul Calibur Legends, ...y' know, because it ain' t the " hotly anticipated" Soul Calibur 3, or even whatever becomes of the obviously-gonna-happen Ninja Gaiden game, because it ain' t gonna be the " hotly anticipated" Ninja Gaiden 2.

didn' t get your point there !! i guess what Terrak meant is that you can' t compare a spin off (Re: UC) with a true popular sequal like Devil May cry 4, so those PREDICTION sales number DON' T SAY MUCH on any consoles but they look realistic, ACtualy as i showed in my previous poset, You can' t deduct anything interesting from them... What would be interesting is to compare a true popular sequal on Wii with another popular sequal on the other platforms in terms of sales ... that should say something .

When some one has an opinion vaguely dissimilar to you, you always get agro. Is it so hard to believe that there are people online that don' t share your views? I don' t remember my post insulting you in anyway so i don' t see the need for you to decend to petty name calling.

Anyway whatever. My point companies are always gonna predict favourable sales outcomes - inline with profitability. They would not predict their products are gonna be failures, or more then likely they will cut it, i don' t see them cutting RE:UC so i assume they still predict it will make a profit. Sure the numbers if RE:UC are 1 third that of what they predicted for DMC, but as i have said, and you have consistently forgotten Wii development costs are around one third that of either ps3 or 360 (look it up on Wikipedia or on google). So again looking at it from that angle those numbers aren' t that bad.

Finally considering DMC4 is being released on 2 platforms (360 & ps3), with a combined install base close to 14-15 million WW compared to Wiis around 8 million WW, RE:UC numbers again are not as bad as your making it seem.

Finally RE:UC is no RE5, so stop making it sound like its even close. ITs an on rails shooter using the RE franchise. Everyone knows its not in the same class, so stop giving the impression that a ' top franchise' has no chance on the Wii. If RE5 was on Wii and they predicted the same then you have a case, not a On rails shooter spin off.

Again on face value the prediction numbers you posted (so posting prediction numbers are ok all of the sudden?) may give bad impression on the Wiis profitability, but when you consider all these facts, again these predictions are not as bad as you are making them out to be.

This is hardly a matter of opinion Terrak. The figures are projected sales, ...they' re nothing do do with profits.

Ofcourse they' ll make money on the games. That' s business. But they don' t have to make money before the fiscal year is out (although they will). It' s not like the games will be removed from shelves come April. The lifetime sales will far exceed these projected ones.

But hey, what about development costs!? Like you say, developing for Wii is cheaper than developing for next gen consoles. That' s why Capcom adopted a western approach for development of their next gen titles, ...and this is something i touched on about nine months ago...

...Y' see, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Devil May Cry 4, Resident Evil 5 and Monster Hunter will all use the same engine. Dead Rising and Lost Planet are already out and both surpassed a million sales each in a short time span after their respective releases. Sales of those two games thus far should easily have recouped the engines development cost as well as covered development costs for the games themselves. Add the fact that the engine is cross-platform and so games can be released over 2 platforms with a minimal development cost impact and you can maximize profits.

So no, development costs in this case don' t factor.

But then, what about your made up install bases? I' m going to speculate that you got them from VGChartz and remind you that figures from bullshit sources will draw criticism here. They' re already banned (and a bannable offense) on NeoGAF, but since it' s much more lax here were have to regulate ourselves. Adding to that, try to avoid posting information garnered from Wikipedia. It' s not trustworthy and full of bullshit information.

So disregarding the install bases for a second, you' re assuming, or at least not factoring, the release dates of the respective games. DMC4 is set for November, but i expect Umbrella Chronicles sooner than that. Perhaps i' m wrong and you can correct me? If not, and if Umbrella Chronicles does turn up sooner than Devil may Cry, ...that would give it more time on shelves to generate sales.

But what of Umbrella Chronicles not being RE5? Well i think you' re overestimating the sales potential of RE5. Both Dead Rising and Lost Planet have already sold far more copies than RE4 did on either PS2 or Gamecube in their relative timespans. The RE games may be critically acclaimed but they' ve never been amongst the top sellers. Writing UC because you don' t think it' s the same calibre as RE5 is just stupid. Like i said, using that mindset you could write off Soul Calibur Legends and other games on or in development for Wii that are offshoots of other mainstay series.

And yeah, posting predictions from a companies quarterly reports is fine. This has already been explained to you. Posting bogus figures like those from VGChartz or useless NPD figures is frowned upon. But if it comes directly from a publisher then it' s fine.

Now what i' m wondering is why you feel is necessary to constantly defend Wii. Most people here, including myself, love Nintendo. The problem some of us have is the limited software lineup Wii has. Obviously that' ll only improve, but Nintendo' s focus on non-games, or super-casual games could be alienating traditional and more hardcore gamers like us. I don' t want my games to be overly streamlined because some might feel the controls are too complex. I don' t want a constant stream of party games or slapdash PS2/PSP ports. I want exclusive made-for-Wii games like Umbrella Chronicles, ...but if companies can' t bank on sales for their hardcore or more traditional games then why would they want to develop them?

Well as for the topic of Development costs, THQ’s CEO Brian Farrell had this to say about developing games on the Wii -

" Q: Are the Wii titles coming out at half the cost?

A: Yes, and sometimes even less than that. Where costs are occurring in this generation are in asset and content creation. And since the Wii is not high-definition, and it can still look good. You have to remember a lot of game systems aren’t yet hooked up to high-def TVs. Content creation is costing all the money. With the Wii, you can look great at a third of the cost sometimes. The business model on the Wii works."

http://gonintendo.com/?p=20030

Thats the ' advantage' (if you could call it that) of not going HD on the Wii. So like i said having only one third the sales of DMC4 is not that bad. I had a feeling people here didn' t take Wikipedias stuff to seriously either.

I won' t comment on the development costs for DMC. I made the assumption that its move to multiplatform was to maximize profits to offset the higher development costs involved in making the game.

As for Install base i based it on two things -

1) In December 06 you said that microsoft has sold 10 million consoles as they had predicted by this time. Its obvious microsoft has sold more since then.

2) I believe sony released there sales of the ps3 in April 07, they estimated around 3-4 million sold they would have sold more by the time of DMC4s release.

all up a ballpark figure of 13-14 million (as high as 16 million possibly or more by the time of DMC release) between them isn' t too out of the question, and no i did not check those websites like nexgenwars etc, i know no one here takes them seriously (thats why no link was included).

As for Wii the total sales could be as low as 6.5 million (going of your post on Wii sales for the end of the Fiscal Year being at 5.8 million by end of April) to around 8 million. I' m not sure exactly were it stands now.

In any event DMC4' s potential user base is around twice the size of that of RE:UC.

I know the release of games for Wii has been very slow as of late. All i' ve been playing is my PC over the last month (been playing Starcraft on LAN), and have only SSBM on the horizon that has me excited. Believe me i know it sucks at the moment for Wii owners, this i cannot deny. But these things can change in time.

My ' defence' of Nintendo and the Wii is more of like a different perspective. You know like glass half empty, half full type arrangement. WHere some may see the lack of HD graphics, and focus on casual gamers as a negative, i try to put things in a positive light. I just offer an alternate way of looking at the situation.

Please don' t call gimmick titles for wii and ds as " casual games" nor XBLA,who were the 14 million+ who bought each GTA?

Hardcore people only? yeah right,or tony hawk,or fifa,hell no.

These are games that is AAA titles for the hardcore and the avg gamer and is just as much casual games too.

And these are the best casual games you can get basically,and not cheap gimmicks like cooking mama ffs.

Wii is looking bad atm...

Even if you break 2 legs from a crab it still runs!
What you gotta do is find its weak spot and do massive damage at it.