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Forums - Sales Discussion - Capcom opinions on Zack&Wiki sales

Just interesting comments from Svensson on the Capcom forums regarding Z&W.

 http://www.capcom.com/BBS/showthread.php?t=21585

 

Our guys in Japan had a HUGE marketing push for this title. It's only just come on the market there too so I'm not so sure how you're passing judgements so quickly.

As for us, let me make a few things clear:

We can't force a retail buyer to take it (though we got it on the shelf in pretty much every major retailer).
We can't make a retail buyer expedite freight so it's on shelf the day after shipment everywhere like Gamestop typically does (which is why Wal-mart and Best Buy only started getting it on shelf on Thursday/Friday).

So for those of you who only shop at Gamestop, either pre-order or look elsewhere to find copies. There were very few pre-orders at Gamestop on Z&W (especially relative to what we're seeing on the first couple of days sales). If you want to see more units on the shelf day one in that particular retailer, then pre-order. Gamestop bases their day one number as some multiple of its preorders. Period.

A number of retailers we pushed to take more units than they did but they have their own thoughts about the game and the market and make their shelf allocations accordingly. Our day one number was a decent number by any measure, owing a lot to the reviews and PR work that we've done. We are not out of stock anywhere except for possible spot out of stocks at Gamestop (probably rectified already as they took their backup order after the first day of sales).

 

 This explains some of the issues reported here about it not available at major retailers on launch day, only gamestop does expedite freight for most games while I'm guessing the other retailers do fast prolly only for big titles.  

Also sounds like they tried to make a major push for other retailers to do a large stock of it but its not completely in their control. 

Overall, it sounds fairly positive, they said their first day sales were decent and that gamestop already took their backup order once they found out that the game sold. 



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Gah, stupid retail stores. I wonder how much money they lost because they didn't listen. All they needed to do was 5 minutes of research to see that there was serious hype for the game online. Maybe you don't need to stock the game like a GTA but a decent stock isn't going to hurt and worst case scenario you don't need to order more for 5 or 6 months.



To Each Man, Responsibility

IMO, this was a pretty bad mistake on the retailers side. I mean, it's their job to know what games many gamers want to buy!! Even if they aren't gamers, all it takes is to go on the internet, and do some research. But then again, I'm not working there so I have noo idea what was going on in their heads.



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This attitude of retailers is why more publishers and developers are looking very hard in to digital distribution.



If Nintendo is successful at the moment, it’s because they are good, and I cannot blame them for that. What we should do is try to be just as good.----Laurent Benadiba

 

So what was the HUGE push in Japan? How many millions did they spend? I think the name, look, and type of the game discouraged a lot of retailers, especially in America.



currently playing: Desktop Tower Defense (PC), Puzzle Quest (DS), Trauma Center New Blood (Wii), Guitar Hero III (Wii), Ghost Squad (Wii), Actraiser (SNES), Donkey Kong County (SNES), The Legend of Zelda (NES), Kirby's Adventure (NES)

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patjuan32 said:
This attitude of retailers is why more publishers and developers are looking very hard in to digital distribution.

 More companies are thinking about selling the game online? That sees reasonable with all this crap, but then again, the majority of the online buyers would be the ones who pre order the game.



Another interesting tidbit he mentioned was about advertising. I don't have the link handy but someone complained about the lack of tv ads and etc hurting the game sales.

Svensson stated that they do have a lot of advertising on it but its targeted towards a different crowd and mentioned things like Disney Magazine or something and the other.

So yes, they advertised, whether they advertise properly and to the right crowd is a different matter.



I got my copy, at first I had mixed impressions about the game and now I cherish it and would never part with it.



Do you think retailers want to be stuck with tons of inventory they can't sell? They can actually loose more that way, as opposed just not making money. It's far worse to loose money than to miss an opportunity. I am sure retailers have been burned listening to hype of companies and then have the product not sell before... Plus a certain amount of lost sales, people will check again later. It's not as easy as it sounds to predict sales.



I think it depends on the game. HSG5 had piles and piles in retailers. There was an insane glut, so much so they had to cut the price in half to get rid of them.