Ready at Dawn raises sun on Okami for Wii

by Alexander Sliwinski { Oct 19th 2007 at 11:00AM }

The rumors were true and Capcom is porting PS2 gem Okami to the Wii, now it's time for some details. 1UP reports that Ready at Dawn, developers of the depressingly pseudo-delayed God of War: Chains of Olympus, will handle the porting. Capcom was looking for a developer to port Okami to the Wii last year as "the PS2 release suffered from shipping amidst the flurry of next-generation consoles." At GDC '07 execs from Ready at Dawn expressed their admiration for the game to Capcom's senior director of research and strategic planning -- they got the offer within a week.

There's no word if additional content will be created for the Wii version; Capcom says that all depends if Ready at Dawn gets the primary game finished in time (they can use extra time to add stuff). Okami is expected in the first half of '08.

Tags: capcom, okami, okamwii, readyatdawn

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Oct 19th 2007 11:03AM

So it was always in the plans to port it. Good to see Capcom is one of the few developers out there with logical people at the helm.

Okami on Wii = No brainer.

Zertoss @ Oct 19th 2007 11:44AM

I've got 9 Wii games, not including WiiSports. Only 1 purchase I regret, and it's a Nintendo title, and it's absolutely terrible.

I leave you guys to figure out which one. Everything else has been great, I don't care what some guy on the innernets says.

Zertoss @ Oct 19th 2007 11:45AM

Whoops, I clicked the wrong Reply link.

WiNG @ Oct 19th 2007 11:48AM

Is it either Cooking Mama or Mario Party 8?

kip @ Oct 19th 2007 11:51AM

My guess would be Wii Play..

Zertoss @ Oct 19th 2007 12:05PM

lol, no, you're both wrong, try again.

I do have Mario Party 8, but I've had a blast with it with my cousins and roommate. Shaking the soda can looks so dirty.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Oct 19th 2007 12:18PM

Capcom buried this game the first time out (and here blames others for it) and they forcefully disbanded Clover Studios.

Not sure why you're making them out to be heroes.

kennethrios @ Oct 19th 2007 1:51PM

It involved a certain ape didn't it?

kennethrios @ Oct 19th 2007 1:55PM

It involved a certain ape didn't it?

Ants @ Oct 19th 2007 3:23PM

is it paper mario?

bender @ Oct 19th 2007 4:31PM

It's WarioWare isn't it. I hated that game.

ruibing @ Oct 19th 2007 5:17PM

I really enjoyed the PS2 version of it. It should look even better on the Wii.

phattie @ Oct 19th 2007 11:07AM

If they can have PSP to Wii ports released at the same time, i dont see it difficulty here. And, i dont expect sales to be any better.. the third party attach rate post Wii-launch is probably hovering around 0.2 +/- 0.2

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Oct 19th 2007 11:11AM

Where are you getting your attach rate figures, phattie?

I personally have at least 7 games.

phattie @ Oct 19th 2007 11:16AM

Well if Wii can sell through 500k units a month with the only real game (not wiiplay) getting around 150k in sales (this being a AAA nintendo title).. wtf are people doing with their wiis other than wiisports? They're buying it but not buying anything else with it other than .. an extra wiimote for wiisports. Marioparty8 dropped off the charts as well.

And, the control cheme for okami works well with wii.. but, its not new anymore since many games use a point and click iinteface.. if it came out at launch, it would be a different story.

And, werent you complaining before that $400 was too much money for you? I bet you have multiple DSs as well.

phattie @ Oct 19th 2007 11:17AM

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 19th 2007 11:20AM

Considering that the Wii has sold about 10 million units now and assuming that at LEAST 1/3 of those Wii owners are Nintendo's core audience (IE- informed, enthusiast gamers), I think the game can easily hit the 500,000 mark if less that 20% of that 1/3 buy the game. That would about double sales of the PS2 version.

And considering the hype and reaction the announcement has gotten, I think that's certainly within the realm of probability.

Grog @ Oct 19th 2007 11:22AM

The numbers aren't that easily accessible, but vgcharts does list 1 million+ sellers of which there are two 3rd party Wii games: Red Steel and Rayman Ravin' Rabbits at 1.02 and 1.03 respectively. Considering that currently reported numbers are 12.48 worldwide Wii sales, that means that 1/6 people worldwide own one of those two 3rd party games (it's more like 1/5 of American Wiis with 1.03/5.19). Then there are dozens of other 3rd party games, many of which are just getting rolling.

So yeah... you're full of crap.

phattie @ Oct 19th 2007 11:25AM

And those games you mentioned are launch games.. which i qualified in my original statement. For a lot of people not on this board, Wii = WiiSports ... the software sales numbers dont like.

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 19th 2007 11:39AM

Resident Evil 4 has sold around 800,000 copies on the Wii. Considering that, it seems likely that it'll hit the 1 million mark within 4 months.
And THAT is for a port of a game that was on the Gamecube already.
Also, Carnival Games for the Wii seems to be selling surprisingly well.

3rd Party games DO sell on the Wii. Just not the lousy ones...which is nearly every 3rd party game on the Wii, of course.

playwhutyalike @ Oct 19th 2007 11:48AM

Shovelware.

We've all heard it tossed around by Anti-Ninty fans.
I'm kind of pumped by this port here, but I hope, for the sake of us fans, we don't get shit on.

I agree with Samfish about the adding extra content. It seems they add the extra content but not the substance or value. Making a shitty port just gives more ammo to the ones who dislike the Wii.

I don't know, sometimes I wish I could read an article and not see the same faces trash the shit out of it, regardless of the platform.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Oct 19th 2007 12:00PM

Phattie, games cost 50 dollars at the most, and DS's are 129 dollars last I checked. None of those is 400 dollars. 400 dollars is way to much money for a single item I'll get little use out of.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Oct 19th 2007 12:20PM

crono:
You also read joystiq. You are not normal.

The majority of Wii buyers are extremely casual gamers. As in they buy WiiPlay to get a second remote and nothing else. Just like my neighbor who came to ask me about buying a Wii two days ago.

Your attach rate is helping the overall Wii attach rate, but there aren't enough people like you to overcome the sheer numbers of people who aren't buying many games (especially 3rd party ones).

playwhutyalike @ Oct 19th 2007 12:40PM

@ LS2/LS3

This is what I'm talking about. I love my Wii for various reasons but if Wii, um we, need for these ports not to be shitty so it does draw more gamers to this system. If a game sold or didn't sell on the PS2 it needs to shine on the Wii, period.

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 19th 2007 11:08AM

They had BETTER not add things to the game! The only people who should add content to Okami are Hideki Kamiya & Friends.

Spruce up the graphics a bit and get rid of that goofy ass slow down throughout the game, sure. But to add extra content? No way!
That's just disrespectful, if you ask me.

Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Oct 19th 2007 5:36PM

How is adding content disrespectful. I find added content to be a better reason to get a certain version of a game.

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 19th 2007 7:09PM

If you made, say, a painting of some people and someone else came along and made mass prints of it but added another person to it themselves...how would that make you feel?

THAT is why it's disrespectful. You don't screw with other people's vision.

Raikage (NDF - PK THUNDER RING) @ Oct 19th 2007 11:08AM

Finally! Maybe it will become a hit?

A must buy for me.

Blast Processing Megadrive @ Oct 19th 2007 11:11AM

[waves a Wii Remote in the air]

Here, Amaterasu! Fetch! Good girl!

Blue_Falcon @ Oct 19th 2007 11:19AM

I've been waiting for this moment (for anykind of Nintendo port of the game) since before the PS2 version of Okami dropped.

I can't wait.

Zertoss @ Oct 19th 2007 11:28AM

I never could find Okami for the PS2, it was always sold out in my area. I won't miss out again.

T3H WICKERMAN (FDF) @ Oct 19th 2007 11:29AM

At last! Now I am that much closer to buying a Wii. I just hope its a good port and they dont go crazy on the waggle.

ComicShaman @ Oct 19th 2007 11:34AM

A good fit for the Wii. I don't have one myself, but I loved the game on the PS2. I hope it's a big hit on Nintendo's system, although sadly, Clover studio has already disbanded.

thispaceforsale @ Oct 19th 2007 11:38AM

excellent news, hoep this gets some more attention

flameofdoom666 @ Oct 19th 2007 12:15PM

yayyyy!

flameofdoom666 @ Oct 19th 2007 12:16PM

I hope this game does great, like RE4:WE and gets a sequel!

why not the LS2LS7? @ Oct 19th 2007 12:16PM

200,000 copies tops.

I do agree with Samfish's comment (not expressed in this article) that some advertising this time would help a lot.

The Wii audience is unlikely to buy anything unfamiliar. This is a console that is being marketed to non-gamers and even comes with a game! There are plenty of Wii owners who have never bought a single game, they just play the pack-in. And they're not going to go to review sites to find out Okami is a good game.

eelb @ Oct 19th 2007 12:42PM

so why did RE4 wii edition sell so well then?

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Oct 19th 2007 1:24PM

Good Question.

Seriously though, I say "seriously" way too much in my posts.

Be that as it may, I often hear: "Most people who buy wii are casual gamers who don't buy games". There's 2 big assumptions in that statement that I've not seen any proof for.

1st: Casual Gamers make up most of Wii's demographic. How do you know? Marketing has targeted this demographic, but we haven't even reached GC level adoption yet. For all you know, hardly any casuals are buying and its just the old Nintendo fanbase thats buying. We don't know which is the case, but we can get an idea from software titles. The best selling titles on wii are Wii Play (which everybody buys because it comes with a controller), Zelda, Paper Mario, Mario Party, Raving Rabbids, and Red Steel. Half of those games aren't casual fair.

2nd: Casual gamers don't buy games. Again, how do you know. There is a plethora of casual games on wii, so there are plenty of different titles that the casuals might pick up. Given the variety, no single casual titles is going to stand out from the rest as far as sales go. So you can't base this assumption on low sales of individual casual games.

Fact is, back to attach rate, of the 12 million wii consoles in consumers hands, they have purchased 44.82 million software titles worldwide. 8.32 million of that is wii sports, a pack in, so we'll count it out. Another 4.49 million is wii play, so we'll count that out. That means, among 12 million wii consoles, there have been 32 million REAL GAMES sold. Do the math, that gives an attach rate of 2.67 games for each wii console. Its not the 5 or 6 on 360, but its still pretty good for a console owned by people who don't buy games (casuals).

Numbers come from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_selling_video_games#Wii because I can't browse VGChartz effectively at work either.

generic @ Oct 19th 2007 1:24PM

So...

Company A creates Project 1 for Company B.
Company B tosses Company A.

Company C to Company B: "Nice work on Project 1".

What the F?

Psaakyrn @ Oct 19th 2007 1:41PM

Correction:
Company A creates Project 1 for Company B.
Company B tosses Company A.

Company C to Company B: "Project 1 was amazing"

Your comments assume that Company C is praising Company B, when they're just praising the game.

In other notes: So, Capcom doesn't trust itself to do the porting? (or they know that it has value, but can't be bothered to port it themself/assume that due to high risk, it's better to get someone else to port it) Either way, even if Capcom did figure that Okami has value, the point is that still don't have that much faith in it.

fuzzy @ Oct 19th 2007 2:06PM

If I could ask for anything in the port, please have a real Japanese language track.

Not only do I think it would help sales in Japan, I think it would really set off the game for others.

baby sea tuna @ Oct 19th 2007 2:11PM

This was a great game to play through while my 360 was in the shop but, new content or not, there's no fucking way I'm gonna sink another 40 hours into it.

Still, Wii owners who enjoyed LoZ:TP should definitely pick this one up. It was the better of the two games, after all...

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Oct 19th 2007 3:46PM

I don't think it was better. The only thing wrong with Zelda:TP was that it all felt the same.
Gameplay wise, though, Zelda was a lot better than Okami.
I could make a list as long as my arm about things they could have done better in Okami...targeting lock-on, the squishy sort of feel when you move Ammy around, the fact that using the Celestial Brush forces you to effectively pause the game which is annoying sometimes...I could go on.
I couldn't think of a single thing they could have done better in Zelda, though. It's the pinnacle of the formula they've been working on since Ocarina...which, coincidentially, is Zelda's biggest drawback, too.

Oddly, though I liked Zelda:TP more, if I had to make a Top 10 list of my favorite games, Okami would be on it and Twilight Princess wouldn't.
...I can't explain how my logic works with that one.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Oct 19th 2007 7:31PM

I dunno. I thought Zelda was better. But Okami was very good. If Okami had more content (it seems to just run out), it might have passed up Zelda in my eyes.

Kinda odd, Zelda seemed low on content and high on repetition and rote early on, but then came on strong. Whereas Okami started off very good (after a bit of training) and then petered out right when you thought the payoff was coming.

If I had to make a top 10 list of my favorite games, I can't imagine either would be on the list, but Okami would be above TP. Even if Okami wasn't as technically proficient or long, it brought a more original and perhaps even a bit more involving experience than TP.

Kinsella @ Oct 19th 2007 2:12PM

Man, what an overrated game. Was way to easy, combat was simplistic and that stupid flea basically told you the answer to every puzzle in the game before you even had a chance to think about it yourself. More shovelware for the Wii.

Superstar90 @ Oct 19th 2007 5:03PM

And that's why it got such good reviews? Seriously, you can't be a ps troll because this is a ps2 game... so when does your RRoD 360 come back then? (and you stop PMS)

Shibathedog @ Oct 19th 2007 2:26PM

Oh man im just happy more people will get to play this fantastic game. No one I know besides myself has even heard of it :/ I hope they make a big deal out of this.

I'll probably pick up a copy whenever I get a Wii even though I own it on PS2, terrific game.