You're Right!

These Capcom employees know nothing, we should clearly listen to the video game estimates site who get tons of other games wrong when compared to other more legitamate sources. To think that Capcom's own employees who are in charge of making these games sell would have a clue how well it sold at all, what a stupid foolish ignorant idea, they wouldn't have a clue!

 If only we had at least one Capcom employees state how well the game sold and how well it's finances held...OH SHI.

Hey, hey, chill. I think - I think - he means to say that it would be nice if Sven shared some data, or Capcom shared some data in general. It's not the correctness that is the problem here, it is the information-sharing.

I think.

@Khuutra: Some people would rather not give it the benefit of doubt, and believe that all those three games bombed (including one which saw sequels and a spin-off).

Hey, whatever makes one happy. I'm not sure about it either way, the available data from Capcom is not consistent enough to form an opinion.

I agree it'd be great if any company shared any sort of data of this nature but in truth, no one does, because it's private data. What Sven said was far beyond what any other company would allow an employee to say, and I'd imagine is enough to get him in a small bit of trouble at Capcom.

 Sales and profits data on this scale is never going to be shared, which is a shame I guess. What he's said though is enough to get the general picture, whcih when we're using a site like VGC (No criticism, what VGC does is amazing in the circumstances) is more then we'll ever see 99% of the time.

 It just baffles me that even when official Capcom reps pretty much come out and say the game wasn't a success and didn't make them any profit, the Wii fanboys choose to go down the route of questioning the Capcom employes integrity as oppose to just accept that this one didn't work out as planned. I just don't get that.

That's not too surprising. Remember that the advertising campaign he's alluding to were for the PS2 version, back in '06. Such expectations aren't too outlandish. And Svennson's gone on record several times about the Wii version saying they didn't expect all that much in terms of sales (and that it was selling according to expectations).

Quite accurate, according to Svennson, but then we only have Japanese data for that game.

Same guy, yes.

I do despise Svennson and his arrogance (especially the "that's the next test" remark), but I find it invaluable to have an executive who's willing to talk publically about some information that we would never otherwise get (see my previous post, for example). Granted, stomaching this a****** is a high price to pay, but I feel it's worth it.

Strangely, this may well be the first time I've ever completely agreed with you on anything, let alone a multi-point post. Well done.

Svennson's addressed this by saying that the former number is "sold-to-customer," while the latter is "sold-to-retailer." A bit of a bummer, if true, but whachagonna do? Make people buy more copies.

That figure relates to Okami on the PS2, not Zack and Wiki. As far as I can tell, the latter's advertising budget was "lol."

Believe whatever you want (this is America), but the range we've been given (by multiple developers) is much higher than that.

Strangely, I second this post. This fact doesn't mean as much as folks (on both sides) seem to think it does. Although it does muddle a few things, analysis-wise.

Yes. Yes you will.

It's not a behavior exclusive to "Wii fanboys". Owners of every system balk when a game they really love didn't do as well. It's a normal reaction - don't judge them too harshly for it.

You're mixing up Okami with Zack & Wiki. That quote about the $2 million is regarding Zack & Wiki so I think my point still stands.

I'm also baffled that some people are willing to believe that Viewtiful Joe did not make money.

 Had Sven not shown a lack of up to date information in the past, I would completely agree with you. He has been shown to doubt numbers that were released by Capcom themselves. Obviously you trust Capcom over anyone else, but he is not a great definitive source. His statement even implies a certain level of uncertainty as to the exact numbers. I hold no doubt that the game was a disapointment for Capcom, and I am fairly convinced the numbers are too high here. I just don't believe the exact number quoted is one that should be trusted without a better source.

 As for employees in general, well we have seen at least one Capcom employee mouth off incorrectly recently. The claim that Viewtiful Joe was not successful is down right ridiculous in light of the over-whelming evidence it had to have turned at least a small profit. There were 2-3 sequels made for the game which is not typically done if you lose money on the venture (lack of Z&W and Okami sequels as an example). Sometimes it is the random guys on the internet that know more for some reason.

If you look at most of my replies you can tell I've tried harder and harder to refrain from using a term like 'Wii Fanboys', but I guess my fuse just blew.

Either way, I didn't want to turn this into a debate of PS360 sucess vs Wii or whatever, so comparing fanboy remarks or whatever isn't what I intended. 

It is a shame so many people try to turn something like this into a PS360 vs Wii debate when they should just be looking at what the apparent facts mean for themselves, and for the system they represent. One games failures arn't enough to really decide anything, as I've said before the only thing they do is show we're in no position to deem what is a success and what is a failure on any platform, just cause we have VGC numbers and some estimates at expenses.

 Two posts because I am too lazy to edit them together. Sales data on how many copies were shipped is often given in financial reports. This was done recently which is how it can be known that around 300k copies of Okami have been shipped. This was not know to Sven as shown in one of the posts earlier in this thread, which is what makes me doubt him for firm numbers. He also claimed Okami Wii was unlikely to pass the Okami PS2 American numbers which have been given to be around 270k which is obviously wrong given the above data. Employees are not the end all of sources as they are still human and might be working with slightly old information.