Okami: What would've happened if it had been a Wii launch title?

[Onyxmeth]

makingmusic476 said:

 

In the OP I said:

"If only Capcom had forseen the success of the Wii... :("

Obvious they had their doubts about the Wii, hence why the game is a ps2 title (despite the controls screaming "Wii!").   However, this thread is hypothetical.  Had they for some reason made the game a Wii launch title, how would it things turned out?

And I don't think the art style and playing as a wolf were the main things that held it back. The lack of knowledge about the game (advertising) in addition to those things is what held it back.

Had it been "The Legend of Zelda: Okami" it would've sold gangbusters.  After all, the Wind Waker had a cartoony artstyle, and Twilight Princess went the wolf route, and both sold extremely well.  It's because people know more about Zelda, while people knew next to nothing about Okami.

Of course, had it been the only other really good Wii launch title, word of mouth probably would've helped quite a bit, making up for some of the lack of advertising.  People would've bought because there was nothing else to buy.  Then they would've told their friends, etc.

Okami wasn't advertised? I saw it advertised in Game Informer for like four months straight with page inserts and the back cover. In fact Capcom held the back cover for their releases that entire year. I don't know how well that means it was advertised, but I thought it was done decently.

Of course the Legend of Zelda: Okami would have sold gangbusters, but that's because Nintendo built that series up over the last 20 years to make it to what it is now.

Here's the real question though. If Nintendo didn't release Twilight Princess at all and Capcom released Okami at launch how would it do then? In that case I could see a clean three million because it would take up the "critically acclaimed" title spot, which bodes well for that one launch game.