Ben-DutkaMan, Capcom's gonna be confused now . I can just see the board meeting: "We even used Western developers and we still couldn't get Western audiences to buy our games! WTF?!?!?!"
The Japanese publisher has announced revised sales forecasts for several of their biggest titles, due in part to "excessive outsourcing."
Although Resident Evil 6 is expected to move 4.9 million copies, that's well below the 7 million Capcom initially anticipated. Ninja Theory's Devil May Cry reboot, despite widespread acclaim, is only expected to sell 1.15 million copies, which is only a little more than half of the 2 million the company originally hoped for. As other reasons for the financial lagging, Capcom cited "a delayed response to the expanding digital contents market" and "insufficient coordination between the marketing and game development divisions in overseas markets."
Consequently, the publisher has warned investors of a "special loss." Well, outsourcing Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City to Slant Six didn't work…or did it? That sold several million copies despite being panned by the critics and is actually destined to outsell DmC: Devil May Cry …which is actually a good game. Wow, Capcom execs must have a searing headache.
I fear the worst for Remember Me. It may be one that gets the ax…
EDIT: I read somewhere that said Capcom is planning to cut some projects already in development.
Last edited by Temjin001 on 4/18/2013 11:42:15 AM
Nah. Remember Me is already being advertised and set for release in less than two months. Even though this is Capcom, I really don't think they would be stupid enough to cancel development.
Now, trade off development to another publisher like THQ did, that's another story…
maybe I can hope Capcom takes DmC away from NT and returns the series to it's popularity with one of their eastern studios. No offense to the new DmC fans, the few of them, I'm one of the many who just prefers the classic vibe… and the vibe that plays at 60fps.
Yeah they have cancelled development on several 'unannounced' projects at third party western devs. So Remember Me should be fine, as it isn't exactly unannounced.
Hey guys,
I allow ads for PSXExtreme to support it. But just now I was bombarded with plenty of Flash Animations (especially the Injustice animation banner) causing my PC to slow down to a crawl.
Is anyone having this issue?
experiment with different browsers. I've had trouble lately with Chrome and ads from various sites.
The half a minute hijacking of the browser with no "skip" button when you first enter the site is quite annoying. But reload the site with the base URL again and you will skip it.
As for flash ads etc I use AdBlock so I don't get any of that (the half a minute hijack is, for me, just a blank white page).
Last edited by Beamboom on 4/18/2013 12:39:10 PM
Working in digital media, I know ads.
Some rich media ads can crash lower spec computers and even some medium spec computers due to crappy flash programming.
My BIGGEST annoyance with this site's advertisements, is that there are several banners that show up at the top of the page, which will load an over-the-page ad the second my mouse touches them….
and yeah Beamboom, that hijacking thing you mention is called an interstitial, the one on this site seems to be broken.
Maybe now we can have Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 7 (with the "Resident Evil: Revelations" team) maybe, yes?
Sigh. Wrong lesson, Capcom.
The lesson here is not about who is making the game. It's about honoring the heritage of your series.
As Resident Evil drifts further and further away from its survival horror roots, its popularity declines. RE4 was a great stride with more responsive controls and smoother action, but it still had the powerful ambiance of survival horror. RE6 had it only for about 1/3 of the game.
DMC was a very well made game, and I enjoyed it. Nonetheless, the atmosphere and treatment of the characters was a long way off from what fans had come to love and want from Dante. DMC4 took flak for being 50% Dante. Ninja Theory's DMC was effectively 0% Dante… with an entirely new character named "Dante" replacing the one that fans knew and loved.
And it should be noted that the public relations campaign leading up to the release of the new DMC was one long clinic in how to piss off your fan base.
If Capcom had told Ninja Theory to keep Dante intact as a character, then the sales results might be very different.
I think they are making a good first move.
They outsourced their games to companies who had a better understanding of Western games development, but unfortunately, those westernised games didn't work. Each developer has its own unique flair of creativity, you can almost always tell who developed a game simply by looking at it, and playing it. If this is true, then it dictates that a games developer directly impacts that 'heritage' you speak of. A Dev in the US, could never create a Resident Evil from yester-year. I could be wrong though.
Now they are bringing everything in house so they can build a new standard for the games they create.
Last edited by Akuma_ on 4/18/2013 10:45:22 PM
Didn't they just say they were going to be awesome again because of all this outsourcing?
This article actually misses out a huge part of the story.
Capcom has begun a period of restructuring, and are going to reduce outsourcing, to focus on more in-house development.
Part of the huge losses that are going to be incurred from this restructure is from the cancellation of several unannounced games that were being worked on by licensed Western developers.
I thought they outsourced in order to make more money?
I honestly think it was less about outsourcing and more about them abandoning the roots of the franchises they outsourced.
Resident Evil 6 was a big departure from survival horror. DmC was … well IMO not quite as good as the original trilogy or even 4.
Lost Planet 3 doesn't look to be anything exciting to me either so yeah I dunno. I just think they need to own up to the mistakes THEY made.
RE6 and DmC should have been closer to what the fans wanted, and not made to try and get some of that Caw o dudie cash pie.
I feel like Capcom has simply lost touch with its roots.
Don't try to make a game you think Westerners want to play. Instead, make a fun and outrageous game YOU want to play in Japan, and give it English subtitles and voice acting as an option.
If the game is good, regardless of whether it is Japanese or Western in tastes, it will still sell. Mind you, Japanese customs and content isn't as popular now as it was 10-15 years ago.
I knew fans would vote with their wallets in regards to Capcom's crap. I liked RE6, even with it's flaw, but DMC was a whole other ball game. Just bad.
huh, just barge into a hens nest and try out each chicken till something works.
that seems to be the attitude at crapcom ATM!
first they say ok in house is not working, so will outsource yea that will solve our problems!
a mere few months later, no scratch that, outsourcing has not worked so were going back to in house.
in other words we have no F*cking clue what the blazing hell were doing!
yea, its ok crapcom, we knew this years ago!
it takes a special kind of specialness to not be able to read the messages slapping you in the face 24/7 365 days a year!!!!!
I agree with Comic Shaman. DmC would not have been more successful with Western studio X over Western studio Y (granted I totally liked the game). It shows, even the games developed by internal Capcom studios have less than expected sales. They're constantly trying to adapt to Western standards instead of sticking to Eastern ideals.
I believe many Westerners like, and appreciate Eastern games because they're created from a different perspective and culture of our own.
@Akuma07: I agree with your point completely. Each developer has a certain style, and therefore, can't fully replicate the 'heritage' born from a different studio.