In Japan, Zack & Wiki received a $2m ad "campaign" Sven said they use 9-12% of how much they think they will make off the game in marketing. He also said sometimes they go a little bit above to make most Capcom games "sell". So using a figure of 10% (a little above 9%) we get that Capcom expected the game to make $22 million dollars (assuming they want their money back from the advertising.)

Here's my analysis:

In Americas and Others, Zack& Wiki was released for $40. I'm guessing after factoring in costs and such, the devs or whatever receive $18/$40 (45%). It wasn't too soon until Z&W got a price cut to $20 to push unwanted sales off the shelves.

The first 9 weeks of sales for Z&W were averaging around 20k (if you check) but once it hit week 10, it was at its lowest point ever worldwide. I'm assuming that after 2 ½ months, the price was slashed to that $20 figure, bringing in dev profit to only $9/20. As figures have said, within these first 3 months, Z&W sold 300k. After using the margin of error above, I say that Z&W sold 250k at the $40 price point. The last 60k ever since then has been at $20. So, basic math tells me that:

Zack & Wiki made after 3 months (for the devs or whatever): 4.5m

Zack & Wiki in the 11 months since has made: 1.2m

$4.5m+$1.2m= $5.70m

Now, going back to that figure which concerned Capcom spending 10% of what they think they'll earn off the game in marketing, they expected Zack & Wiki to net them sales of $22m+, but with MY (I repeat MY) $5.70m stated above, they fell well short of that mark, only attaining 23% of the amount of money they wanted.

However, I wonder as to HOW MUCH DID THEY ACTUALLY THINK THIS WAS GOING TO SELL? Let me break down the logistics:

• Zack & Wiki is a rand new IP, so without the fanbase of a franchise to fall back on, it has to establish some type of brand name for itself
• Zack & Wiki is a point-and-click game, which most gamers acknowledge as a dead genre when it comes to gaming nowadays and isn't really popular.
• Capcom chose not to advertise the game at all in two territories, Americas and Others, so once the game was released, it isn't like people outside of the internet knew about it.
• The date of the game's release in all territories is as follows: 11/26.07 in America, 10/28/07 in Japan, & 1/18/08 in Others. The userbase for the Wii approximately at the time in each territory was: 7m, 3.7m, and 6.2m respectively.
• Retailers must order the games in order to sell them to consumers; but when these retailers don't even know the game exists, it is difficult to actually sell what you do not have.

The real kicker out of all of this, is how many copies of this game Capcom expected or wanted it to sell. I realized (that with my figures above) Zack and Wiki was supposed to sell an upwards of 1.35 million copies. I got this from taking the $9/20 figure and the $18/40 figure, adding them up, and finding the average (13.5). With $22 million being divided by a varying degree of numbers close to 14, I got my ball park figure.

So Capcom expected the game to sell anywhere from 1.1 to 1.5 million copies, pretty much outselling either Resident Evil 0 or Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube.....

With expectations like that, I'm literally rendered speechless.

DISCLAIMER: Obviously my numbers are all assumptions, and can be argued to not make much sense, but if you are willing to correct me on them, the forum community and  I, myself, will be welcomed to hearing it and adding it into the analysis. These numbers are not fact whatsoever and shouldn't be seen as such, but rather as a VERY general way to make sense of Capcom's financial foolishness.

They expected that Z&W would outsell RE: UC and RE4 Wii edition.

But on the flipside, they didn't think either of those would sell.

"Zack & Wiki is a point-and-click game, which most gamers acknowledge as a dead genre when it comes to gaming nowadays and isn't really popular."

I'm going to nit pick here and disagree. the genre isn't dead. It's forgotten. The genre just got caught in a disruption. The FPS disruption. FPS were in a way cheaper to produce. PnCA were getting so advanced that it was expected to have voice acting, marvelous special effects. The puzzles also became zany just to be not predictable for the hardcore fans. Essentialy the games became to "elite". They were actually thinking of multiplayer with the next iteration of Space Quest. With the FPS rising fast and showing to produce more money for less work. Well of course it was left behind.

With todays growth of the casual gaming. A relaxed PnCA would be welcome. If done right. Zack and Wiki while a good game was not done right. The style was just to over the top for most NA customers. The puzzles areas were linear. Where as old time versions could have you hold onto items for half the game. The game seemed more like a series of mini adventure games with a tie in rather than large adventure.

Anyways I agree with Rol.