Capcom deals in millions of units, typically. They aren't the types to like the idea of a game selling less than 1m copies after two weeks, as DMC has done (according to VGC's charts so far). Even RE6, which received some pretty lousy ratings, has managed 3.81m so far. Consider as well that they specifically hired an outside studio to create it, which I imagine raised costs even more, and how long it took them to make this game.

In those terms for a AAA project? 544k is probably considered a potential failure to most of these bigger corps.

Consider as well that all previous Devil May Cry games, except 2, got over 2 million copies. At this rate? 2m might be a stretch for this one.

^ Not to mention it´s game from a well established franchise that´s been released on consoles with significantly larger install bases than in 2008...yes, as far as Capcom is concerned, DmC is a bomba.

Just to put it simple this is the result of giving fans something they never asked for, same with RE6, DMC4 wasn't good? yes, franchise needed some fresh air? yes, was DmC a bad game? no, BUT did the fans asked for something as drastic as a reboot? no, there you go, take risks when you know what you are doing...
and by the way, hey Toriyama did fans really asked for more Lightning? we'll find out...

Ninja Theory used Avatar's studio mocap, I'm sure thats cheap.

It is all relative.  My guess is Capcom spent a small fortune funding this project and had big hopes (they expected close to twice as many sales) so this could be considered a failure with 2 million total sales while a much smaller project could sell 500K lifetime and be viewed as success.

I think peoples minds were made up as soon as they showed off the new Dante! I've never played any of the previous DMC games, but I enjoyed the demo for this and will pick it up eventually.

Marketing for this game was every where, GameStop, Kotaku, Gamespot, etc. This is probably a massive loss for Capcom because they first expected 5M then lowered to 2M and now 1.2M... damn I can hear all that money burning away.

Had no real effect on the sales of the game.

Is this real life? Are people this short-sighted?

Edit: Nearly everything everyone is speculating on has no source. Yes, its sales are disappointing, but to call it a complete failure after 2-3 weeks is just dumb.

Maybe a smidge?