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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Capcom: DmC "posted solid sales", Capcom still using outsourcing

Rafux on 13 May 2013
ShroudedDarkness said:
I'm finding it hard to follow Capcom's line of thought on this one.

-They rebooted after Devil May Cry 4 because "we saw other action games getting 4 to 5 million sales". Nevermind the idiocy of this statement as a Third Person Shooter Action title, or action games of the like, are mainstream while Hack n' Slash action titles are niche besides God of War. This is what they stated and why they wanted to go "Western".

-They then set their goal for 2 shipped within 2 1/2 months.

-They lower their goal to 1.2 million shipped within 2 1/2 months.

-They lower their goal yet again to 1.15 million shipped within 2 1/2 months (shipped = sold to the developer).

-Despite having to lower their shipment expectations twice, they claim "solid sales" when they shipped 850,000 less than they originally planned for and sold less than a million retail.

-This is also despite the fact that it is currently the lowest selling Devil May Cry title, despite having the largest marketing push and the most publicity. Even if it has the best legs in the world, it won't come close to matching Devil May Cry or Devil May Cry 4 and will have difficulty passing Devil May Cry 2.


Was it really THAT cheap to make with Ninja Theory and THAT expensive to make internally? Damn, seems like Ninja Theory got boned if they made the game for THAT cheap, so cheap that it's to the point it can under ship by 850,000 and under sell by over 900,000 and still make a good profit.

I'm baffled with Capcom logic too, DmC had:

-Same mocap studio from Avatar (also the crew had to flew to LA)

-Outsourcing to an UK studio that made Heavenly Sword which sold 1.6M and still wasn't profitable (also logistics cost money)

-3 year development time (2010,2011,2012).

-Unreal Engine license (about $700K) when they could have use the MT Framework engine for free

-Quite a decent marketing push with pop ups in Gamestops, ads in sites like Kotaku and Gamespot and a trailer before the latest Resident Evil movie


It had to be expensive and they say "solid".



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outlawauron on 13 May 2013
ShroudedDarkness said:
I'm finding it hard to follow Capcom's line of thought on this one.

-They lower their goal yet again to 1.15 million shipped within 2 1/2 months (shipped = sold to the developer).

Typo? Shipped = sold to retailers.



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ishiki on 13 May 2013

Some people try to derive too much out of business speak (which is a spin to investors).

Capcoms still making money - yay
Capcoms not growing or making much as expected - boo



ShroudedDarkness on 13 May 2013
ishiki said:

Some people try to derive too much out of business speak (which is a spin to investors).

Capcoms still making money - yay
Capcoms not growing or making much as expected - boo


But that's the thing:  It's not that they didn't grow as much as expected.  It's the fact that they actually shrunk.  It undershipped, undersold, only did marginally better critically than Devil May Cry 4 (which had an 84) but still did worse than Devil May Cry 3 SE and Devil May Cry, and is going to have a hard time even matching previous franchise sales.  Dragon's Dogma at least has the excuse of being a new IP, so 1.3 million sold in that case is rather good.  But saying DmC had "solid sales" is like saying Resident Evil 6 had "solid sales".  Yeah it turned a profit, but it also undershipped  and undersold and was from an established franchise.



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ShroudedDarkness on 13 May 2013
zarx said:
ShroudedDarkness said:
I'm finding it hard to follow Capcom's line of thought on this one.

-They rebooted after Devil May Cry 4 because "we saw other action games getting 4 to 5 million sales". Nevermind the idiocy of this statement as a Third Person Shooter Action title, or action games of the like, are mainstream while Hack n' Slash action titles are niche besides God of War. This is what they stated and why they wanted to go "Western".

-They then set their goal for 2 shipped within 2 1/2 months.

-They lower their goal to 1.2 million shipped within 2 1/2 months.

-They lower their goal yet again to 1.15 million shipped within 2 1/2 months (shipped = sold to the developer).

-Despite having to lower their shipment expectations twice, they claim "solid sales" when they shipped 850,000 less than they originally planned for and sold less than a million retail.

-This is also despite the fact that it is currently the lowest selling Devil May Cry title, despite having the largest marketing push and the most publicity. Even if it has the best legs in the world, it won't come close to matching Devil May Cry or Devil May Cry 4 and will have difficulty passing Devil May Cry 2.


Was it really THAT cheap to make with Ninja Theory and THAT expensive to make internally? Damn, seems like Ninja Theory got boned if they made the game for THAT cheap, so cheap that it's to the point it can under ship by 850,000 and under sell by over 900,000 and still make a good profit.

We are talking about the company that is making sequels to Dragons Dogma which sold just as bad (1.3m) and was the seccond largest dev team (but the largest internal dev team) for any Capcom game (RE6 was much bigger but mostly outsourced) which was in development for 4 years and also claim that had solid sales and was a surprise hit after one of the producers claiming that they could see the game selling 10m copies.

Then they have RE6 the most expensive game they have ever made and the latest installment in their largest franchise selling less than the last installment by a significant margin.

DmC is the least of their worries right now.


Here's the thing:  Dragon's Dogma was a new IP.  So 1.3 million for a brand new IP from a company not exactly known for their RPGs as of late isn't exactly bad.  Not good, but not bad either.  Now, if Dragon's Dogma 2 does the same or worse, then yeah, it was a wasted investment.  But if Capcom can find a way to raise those sales to 2 to 3 million with the next iteration and then hold those sales for future installments, then it would be a success.  Remember, new IPs are risky investments for a reason.  As per the 10 million sales thing, I'm pretty sure it was Kobayashi who said that.  Kobayashi also claimed that Devil May Cry 4 would stay at the top of the charts "for two years" and that 7 million sales for RE 6 was just the beginning.  Take anything he says with a grain of salt.

Agreed on Resident Evil 6 being a failure.  But DmC is in the same boat:  it's currently expected to sell well over a million less than Devil May Cry 4, will probably end up selling 500,000 or more less than Devil May Cry in the end, and will barely match Devil May Cry 2's sales.  DmC was made with the explicit intent to expand sales. 



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A203D on 13 May 2013

ShroudedDarkness said:
I'm finding it hard to follow Capcom's line of thought on this one.

-They rebooted after Devil May Cry 4 because "we saw other action games getting 4 to 5 million sales". Nevermind the idiocy of this statement as a Third Person Shooter Action title, or action games of the like, are mainstream while Hack n' Slash action titles are niche besides God of War. This is what they stated and why they wanted to go "Western".


-Despite having to lower their shipment expectations twice, they claim "solid sales" when they shipped 850,000 less than they originally planned for and sold less than a million retail.

-This is also despite the fact that it is currently the lowest selling Devil May Cry title, despite having the largest marketing push and the most publicity. Even if it has the best legs in the world, it won't come close to matching Devil May Cry or Devil May Cry 4 and will have difficulty passing Devil May Cry 2.


Was it really THAT cheap to make with Ninja Theory and THAT expensive to make internally? Damn, seems like Ninja Theory got boned if they made the game for THAT cheap, so cheap that it's to the point it can under ship by 850,000 and under sell by over 900,000 and still make a good profit.

 

Your forgetting one important detail. It dosen't matter how much DmC cost to make or how much it made. If Capcom didn't outsource DmC, they would not have been able to develop Dragon's Dogma.

Without DmC Dragon's Dogma could not exist. It will be worth more to Capcom than DMC5 could have been. Especailly since RPGs have a much bigger market than DMC. If Capcom get the next one right they could even get sales on par with Dark Souls, or maybe more, since Dragon's Dogma has broader appeal. Either way they have a new successful franchise that would not exist without DmC.

Your point about third person action games, also misses two big games Capcom could be reffering to; Assassin's Creed and Batman Arkham Asylum. It seems to me those are the types of games Capcom were thinking about.

If you have information on Capcom's marketing budgets et al that might be useful. Since I haven't seen anything saying DmC was more expensive to market than say DMC1 or DMC4.

In terms of sales data. Vgchartz is unclear on the matter since DMC1 is listed at 2.9 mil sales, where as Capcom have said DMC1 sold 2.5 mil copies. Whatever the case, I'm not sure what the exact sales of DmC are, since we don't know if Capcom have tracked PC, Xbox Live, PSN or Steam sales in their 1.15 mil copies.

At the moment Capcom have listed DmC as 1.15 mil sales as of March 31st or April 1st. Unfortunately I can't regard your opinion as more credible than Capcom's own fiscal reports.

The other thing you have to consider is whether DMC4 damaged the series. If you look at something like FF13-2, it sold less than half the copies of FF13. I expect FF13-3 will sell even less copies. There are various reasons for that. However the simple question that needs to asked is why FF13-2 sold less than half the copies of its predecessor? In the case of DMC4 I think that game did damage the series for various reasons.



zarx on 13 May 2013
ShroudedDarkness said:


Here's the thing:  Dragon's Dogma was a new IP.  So 1.3 million for a brand new IP from a company not exactly known for their RPGs as of late isn't exactly bad.  Not good, but not bad either.  Now, if Dragon's Dogma 2 does the same or worse, then yeah, it was a wasted investment.  But if Capcom can find a way to raise those sales to 2 to 3 million with the next iteration and then hold those sales for future installments, then it would be a success.  Remember, new IPs are risky investments for a reason.  As per the 10 million sales thing, I'm pretty sure it was Kobayashi who said that.  Kobayashi also claimed that Devil May Cry 4 would stay at the top of the charts "for two years" and that 7 million sales for RE 6 was just the beginning.  Take anything he says with a grain of salt.

Agreed on Resident Evil 6 being a failure.  But DmC is in the same boat:  it's currently expected to sell well over a million less than Devil May Cry 4, will probably end up selling 500,000 or more less than Devil May Cry in the end, and will barely match Devil May Cry 2's sales.  DmC was made with the explicit intent to expand sales. 

Plenty of new IPs have sold much better than Dragons Dogma tho, even much lower profile ones with much smaller budgets. Sleeping Dogs managed 1.75m, Dead Island did over 5m, L.A. Noire did almost 4m, Dishonored is at 2.53m and Rage is at 2.98 according to VGChartz, Dark Souls did 2.37m tho you could argue that it's the same franchise as Deamon's Souls but even that sold well over 500k units on just the PS3 with a heavily delayed and limited European launch and no real marketing in the west, even Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning managed 1.2m in 90 days. 

No matter how you look at it Dragons Dogma was a pretty big faliure for Capcoms second biggest game ever. 



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hikaruchan on 14 May 2013
Wright said:
hikaruchan said:
Wright said:
ethomaz said:
Good because the DmC is one of the best hack n slash games released this year... way better than Rising and others... just not too good like GoW: A.


It's way too easy. Almost every hack n' slash game this generation has been insultingly easy.


@eathomaz DmC 2013 and all GOW games are rrediculas easy xD. MGR and NG3RE are only ones to offer any real challenge this year. 

@Wright play NG3RE on Master Ninja or Ultimate Ninja!

 

Hikaru-chan, I beat Metal Gear Rising, and the only moment I truly felt challenged to the point of thinking I couldn't beat the game was at the final boss. I played the game on Hard on my first try. I didn't found it difficult. (It is, however, when you got new difficulties, but the Hard one isn't hard).

I'm not very fond of Hack n' Slash, but I gave Rising a try because of the amount of fun I got with Madworld. I didn't like Platinum Games' Bayonetta, though.

I guess I'll eventually play NG3, but for now, every Hack n' slash I've tried has not been as difficult as...I don't know, NG2.

As long as it's the NG3 Raors Edge version! it'svery hardand fun on Master/Ultimate Ninja. 

the original NG3 is crap. 



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hikaruchan on 14 May 2013
tontus said:
hikaruchan said:
Wright said:
ethomaz said:
Good because the DmC is one of the best hack n slash games released this year... way better than Rising and others... just not too good like GoW: A.


It's way too easy. Almost every hack n' slash game this generation has been insultingly easy.


@eathomaz DmC 2013 and all GOW games are rrediculas easy xD. MGR and NG3RE are only ones to offer any real challenge this year. 

@Wright play NG3RE on Master Ninja or Ultimate Ninja!

What you type of people don't undertand is that not everybody want their videogame purchases to frustrate them or require a lot of time to master their combat systems. God of War was never about having an overly complex combat system with ridiculous difficulty, it's meant to be accessible so as many people as possible can enjoy it (a.k.a. why the series is more than double as big as the next biggest series in the genre) and it's deep enough for people to master and pull of spectacular combos. And there's a reason why the games have 4 difficulty settings, on the hardest difficulty all the GoW's are challenging for 99% of people, the 1% who want it to be frustraingly difficult should be ignored in favour of the majority. It's obvious why Ninja Theory tried to make DmC more like GoW but it didn't work out for them.

Regarding DmC, it seems it's not done that badly after all. I say this because the series is actually much smaller than Vgchartz's estimates according to Capcoms own shipment data. Not a single DMC has ever sold above 3 million. Only DMC4 & DMC sold over 2 million. DmC should ship 1.5-1.7m lifetime which will be inline with DMC 2 & 3.



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hikaruchan on 14 May 2013
ethomaz said:
Wright said:


Ey! You agreed with me that a seven was a good score for Rising! ¬¬

Not a bad game, but I supposed you and me expected something different. I haven't tried NG3, though. But I do think that GOW and DmC are rather easy. That's not a horrible thing or anything like that, but hack n' slash should be challenging. I got interested in Ascencion though, because a lot of critics got stuck in one part of the game and they couldn't beat it!

Yeah... I think bad is not the word... maybe MEH... not exception but that coming from a guy that played Bayonetta and at the end give it a 7 too because it was so boring gameplay... maybe it is my taste.

I'm not reach that part in Ascension too but what I read it was a puzzle part not battle challenging.





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