Capcom: Wii is 'a tough market to crack'

I know, they already admitted they can't compete with Nintendo over and over again. It's like the 80s and 90s all over again.

Wait a sec Capcom. Are you trying to tell me that companies are going to take a break from releasing shovelware to release high quality games. Yeeaaaahhhhhhh...........I'll believe it when I see it, thank you. In all honesty though, Capcom's upcoming Monster Hunter Tri is just about the first AAA title to be released on the Wii by a third party. *sigh* It almost makes me wish I was back in the gamecube era. Ya'know, the era when companies other than Nintendo released quality titles. There have been a few good games released lately, but it's nothing like it used to be.

IMO Capcom should take advantage of the Wii's native pointer abilities and finally release Super Adventure MEGAman.

Would please Megaman fans and casual gamers who want to watch an anime while playing shooting 'minigames'.

Welcome to the party Capcom.

Here are a few hints about how to make it happen:

Release a new Okami game for the Wii and make it good! The original was a hidden gem and has enough people who know this to take a chance at a sequel.

Release a Resident Evil built from the ground up for Wii. RE4 sold over a million and that was only a port from Gamecube (bets are a lot of people refused to double up by re-buying).

Oh, and thank you for being one of the companies to have actually produced good games for Wii (albeit two of the best were ports, but I'm not complaining as I hadn't played them before Wii).

Blaming the wii consumer as I've seen here as the primary reason is pretty tunnel vision in looking at it. Sure in 06 it was a joke and figured it would fail, but given a year 3rd parties learned watching 3rd parties who didn't hide like fools can move a million or more. The issue was the classic age old bs of 'nintendo games are the competition and we do not like that' type stuff of being defeatist to that. Also the issue is that what was one a myth they made fact that 3rd party games can't sell. It was myth, but by continually releasing at best B effort titles from major players Square Enix, EA, etc and leaving their well established IPs outside of the Nintendo box caused the brunt of the problem. If you screw the Wii owner into poor C grade or worse crap you create to all the gaming newbs and lapsed types from the 2D era that 3rd parties suck at making good games, but Nintendo is a safe bet mentality. They created this problem extensively between 2008 to present and due to that those who do make good stuff get overlooked as fear it's more crap in a box. A fair ad campaign would do wonders tv spots and all, but also again they keep that for the HD systems so that hurts too.

Poor marketing, shoveling turds for 3 years mostly, and then keeping out desired IPs or making crap spinoffs that are poor replacements (Castlevania Judgement, Dead Space Extraction, etc) also did it too. The only groups that seemed to get not being complete bastards was EA and Ubisoft more or less, and even now they're getting cold feet because everyone elses abusive tendencies has hurt them now too.

Y'know, that picture was a great example of a great game made for the Wii that got horrible advertising. I read about it on blogs as it was coming out and followed the news eagerly. Easily one of the most innovative games for the Wii - not a bunch of mini-games, intriguing use of the controller, entertaining, and worth buying. I bought it practically day 1 even though I almost never do that for anything, especially games. I keep hoping there will be a sequel and I'm glad to read that it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.

Still, if you want to be successful - make a good game, not a bunch of mini-games or re-hashes. Do it well, don't just slap it together and toss it out the door. Lastly, advertise the game. I think Z&W could have sold a LOT more copies if there had been some real advertising $$ thrown at it.

Looking at what's available for the Wii now, there is some variety, but generally I see a lot of minigame collections or some really hastily made games that I can't imagine getting for free, let alone paying money.

This means that "Tatsunoko vs capcom" actualy has a chance of bringing "street fighter alpha3" or something along the lines of "marvel vs capcom 3" instead "ubisoft vs capcom : the clash of minigamez" ? =P

Because if i see the third umbrella chronicles (as more as i liked the first ...) instead of a resident 4.5 i'm going to scream >=O

also, cliche "niche cult game with no advertising will NEVER sell well" =P

No advertising will kill a game and system.

The Dreamcast had awesome games, but almost no advertising. The system itself had advertising, but when did you see any for individual games? Outside of magazine ads you didn't really see much.

Less advertisements, less game sales, system died.

You can make the best games in the world, but without advertisement, they won't sell much.

I really don't see fewer quality titles really leading to sales from the people they are targeting. Fact is: most wii owners that they want to sell things to don't really watch any advertisements related to the wii and don't pay attention to it that much.

a huge amount of decision on which wii game to buy comes from looking at the box. That's about the only thing most wii owners ever see for the game in terms of advertising, or the only time they are paying attention. Ifone company were to make fewer quality titles, it would look almost the same as all the other Wii games on the shelf, and would be lost in the sea of shovelware. It's very very difficult to tell the difference between a AAA game and a D- game from boxart alone, so the one with the most software on shelves has a better chance of their software getting picked up.

Now keep in mind, this is for the casuals that don't read up on this stuff as much as we do on this gaming blog. You know exactly who I am talking about.

Making fewer titles but better ones only works well on the Wii if everyone does it. Bring back the real seal of quality Nintendo.

Hey lets all buy Capcom VS when it comes out this month!

Line in the fucking sand, Nintendo.

Line in the fucking sand.

Start doing right by these companies, or the Wii will likely be in a lot of trouble.

As a Wii and PC owner, and a fan of hardcore games (FPS me, you'll die... if I have a mouse, anyway...) I have a quick answer for Capcom.

You didn't release your main titles on Wii, and then you claim it's hard to capitalize on Wii's market? No SFIV, No Resident Evil 5, and where's Megaman? Instead, we get "decent" on-rail shooter versions of resident evil games... a resident evil 1 remake that uses gamecube style controls instead of the awesome controls you used in Resident Evil 4...

The only success capcom has brought to the table on the Wii, for me, is Resident Evil 4, which was my favorite version of the game, and one of the few games that really takes advantage of the wiimote/nunchuk setup CORRECTLY.

This would be like a giant shoe company selling awesome tennis shoes that everyone loves in all the other markets, and then crying about low revenues in North America where they only sold flip flops.

Yeah, the Wii is low on processing power... but it didn't stop the guys who made Ghostbusters, nor you from making Resident Evil 4, nor anyone else who made a decently successful port...and those ports don't even carry the clout of a title like RE5 or SFIV.

I'd have bought both of those games day one.

http://www.judgex.com

here's an idea capcom... don't do stuff half-ass and make rail shooters etc then bitch that sales suck... make like a resident evil 4 alternate edition! or some real damn game.

"Buy our games or we'll stop making them." - some Capcom guy.

It's just FREE ADVERTISING. Kids, don't be afraid.

As one who sells video games at a store, there are multiple factors with this issue. But I would dare this this should apply to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well. I'm going to use the PlayStation 3 as an example, simply because I myself feel that the PlayStation 3 does with very well.

The PlayStation 3 has had its difficulties with games, I acknowledge this, but I feel it has worked to Sony's advantage and that Sony ought to really think about what's happening with them this round in the console wars and apply it, and never forget it. Nintendo had this issue during its course with the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo Gamecube. Nintendo was hugely successful with the Nintendo and Super Nintendo, and they let it get to their head. Once they finally lost 3rd party support to Sony and their PlayStation 3, Nintendo was forced to rethink their strategy because they realized they could only depend upon themselves for success. The result, stronger more quality first-party titles. So they tried to focus on that. Now, Nintendo's back up in success with a revolutionary console, but they're remembering they can't rely soley on third-party developers, but they still need first-party quality games. That's what they're doing. Now, their third-party support is getting lazy and failing them.

My point is, that Sony is realizing the same thing. Third-party developers have gotten lazy and just want to complain, because they feel it justifies their financial problems. Yes, its going to cost them a little more money, but technology has never been cheap. The US Government knows this which is why for some strange reason, the Military chose to purchase a mass amount of PlayStation 3 consoles solely for the Cell Processor, not to entertain its troops. So, Sony is learning that they can't rely on third-party developers and that they need to focus not only on first-party games, but quality first-party games. The result is Killzone 2, Ratchet & Clank Future Series, Heavy Rain, God of War, Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid (this is an exception as its considered an exclusive), and even into the sports games like MLB: The Show which is similar to what SEGA learned when EA wouldn't support the Dreamcast. Sports games are big sellers in the states. SEGA developed 2K Sports which gamers appreciated 2K's football games enough, that it threatened EA enough to purchase the rights to Madden and the NFL.

So, Capcom is heading in the right direction. They're realizing Casual gamers aren't making them any money. They're really only wanting Wii Sports type games and they're buying few of them because the Wii looks appealing, EVERYONE has one so I have to have one, and they only want to spend 30 minutes playing, then come back a week later maybe. That's the casual gamer. They need one game, because they don't understand what a console really is. But the hardcore gamers certainly aren't content with this and buy other consoles searching for quality, not quantity. Microsoft is accepting quantity as well and not quality, and they could meet the same fate, Nintendo could be facing with developers backing out because simple and it great numbers, just aren't cutting it with gamers that are consuming most of the gaming market, its not casual gamers, its hardcore gamers.

The amount of Denial in these threads is quite, comical. Let me ask a question, Natal and Sony's Motion control device, why do any of you believe they are being made? Do you think publishers care about Hardcore gamers? If you do you have already lost the game.

I tell you one thing, If natal takes off, you can say good by to many of your hardcore titles. If Publishers can tap into the Wii consumer base, while not spending 20million on a MW2 or Uncharted 2, they will force you to play what they say to play. Did anybody see the big name publishers bailing out the small companies when they were going under trying to make for PS360.

They can't control PC gaming the same way they can console; and that cash cow "hardcore" gamers feel is a myth is sitting their waiting to be tapped into. The fact that gamers blame Nintendo and consumers for not picking up shovelware and 5 hour niche games just so you can feel vindicated is not a good sign. EA, Activision, Capcom, Square, list goes on DO NOT CARE ABOUT GAMERS. They care about creating a product that sells.

Why do you think they can't wait for Natal to step forward, MS is in everybodies homes, imagine a game that has the production cost of Zack and Wiki with the profitability of MW2 that is their Holy Grail. When a game company says "Hey we might try making quality games now rather than just putting games out." you should be terrified.

But this isn't the first time this has happened. Gamers just have picky memories

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2006/08/4955.ars

Keep Bickering like little children as they divide the industry up. If you read the interview David Gardner says "They bet a lot on PSP, and were surprised That gamers wanted Fun games". I will Post the whole quote

"There’s no doubt that EA has historically bet more on PSP. I think we were excited by the technology, but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun. We must never forget that what we need to focus on is fun and so EA is putting more effort behind DS games – and creative ones that really take advantage of the hardware"
David Gardner EA's COO of worldwide studios 2006

Do you see what their answer was by the way? To fuel more games into the Nintendo ds, as if to say "Well if you don't want the boring crap we create on the PSP, We will just go to the DS" And STILL, you gamers nag and bicker like babies. By the way the DS has been a GOLD MIND, so lets cut the crap about game publishers and designers, not being about to tap into a new market with radically different tech. If you hold your Publishers and designers to lower standards and create excuses for them they will screw you over.

Or maybe I am wrong Maybe there just wasn't a core audience on the PSP for fun games yea, all the Developers should leave the PSP. What did the developers/publishers learn from psp, and ds NOTHING! They did the same tactic all over again and you gamers ate it up because damn it; Being a fanboy is just that important.

I don't understand these comment threads. I don't really understand why everyone has such a vested interest in the profits of a company on a particular hardware.

The wii has more low-budget software than other consoles. therefore it sells more software than other consoles, but sales are divided into smaller chunks.

PS3 and 360 cost more to develop for, therefore companys focus on less, but bigger budget titles. Therefore their sales are concentrated around those titles.

This seems to be simple economics, and nothing to do with many of the factors promoted by various commenters here.

Nintendo is about the only developer making "blockbuster" titles on the Wii, so they get the blockbuster sales (17 of top 25). Sony makes a lot of blockbuster titles for the PS3, so they get a lot of the blockbuster sales (9/10 of the top 25).
But more 3rd party big-budget games are released on the PS3/360, so there's more competition. (call of duty plus madden and fifa makes up most of the rest of the PS3s top 25).

Financially I don't see why publishers would be upset with the situation, they spend a lot less on development and advertising, so they can't be too upset with less sales.

As for capcom, they should look at their releases.

For PS3/360 they've only released about 8-10 games, and of those the only big sellers are MGS4, DMC4, Lost Planet, and PE Soccer. All big budget, heavily advertised, high rated games, mostly from big franchises.

For Wii they've released 16/17 titles, but other than RE rail shooters (which sold well), and remakes of old games, they've released no big budget games, no big franchises, no big advertising campaigns.

Many Wii gamers undoubtedly have different tastes to other console's gamers.... but looking at Capcom's Wii offerings, I can't say I'd have bought any of them. (except a few of the remakes, but i have those already).

So to translate

"we here at capcom are going to reduce our shovelware and as such make quality games that the people will buy."

The problem is with selling quality games is I'm willing to bet that 3/4 of that "massive install base" has written off the Wii as little more than shovelware. They also most likley own a ps3 or 360 so companies have often overlooked the Wii in lieu of producing a quality title for on of the other systems. Ok who am I jokeing for the 360 because you people are too dense to optimize code for a cell processor.

Who can blame them when companies release games like Resident Evil 5 for the ps3 and 360 then release a railshooter version for the Wii, Deadspace for the ps3 and 360 then release a railshooter version for the wii ? Who else sees a pattern developing ?

Tho I hear the railshooter(s) in question is unusually good for a railshooter(s) .... Personally I think of myself as a slightly more hardcore gamer and the only console I own is the Wii. For the most part I'm in it for the first party titles as most of the third party titles can easily fall into the shovelware category. However there are some diamonds in the rough that stand out and make the system, its too bad that a vast majority of games do feel like nothing more than tech demos for the motion controllers.

The issue is that there is no advertising for MOST hardcore Wii games because the developers feel that the game is going to fail so why bother. If they actually did some good ads and promoted the games they may sell much better. What the Wii also needs are some high quality games that get casual gamers to at least start moving towards being a hardcore gamer. If games like this work then there may be more sales of hardcore games!

So... chances for Zack & Wiki 2 are very small. A real pity.

You should go on a diet, maybe your brain will get oxygen again.

i had a wii and it has great games such as no more heroes, madworld, hotd, and nearly anything nintendo makes. the reasons why none of the games have sold is becuase they are niche great games like adventure style or beat um ups or they are average like the conduit and world at war. another reason is that a lot of their better games are ports like twilight princess, resident evil 4 or okami which takes 3 AAAs out of a whopping 8. that means a wii owner who played all 3 games has ssbb, mario galaxy, world of goo rock band 2 and metroid prime trilogy. thats not very much and has anyone noticed that their are no rpgs that are excellent or great. fire emblem was pretty good in my opinion and tales was a rehash of the first symphonia. the final reason is that wii has no shooter to call its own that rivals what 360 or ps3 have. the ps3 has killzone 2, resistance and call of duty while 360 has gears,halo and call of duty

I guess it all comes down to individual expectations, and how a given game fulfills them. Regarding some of the standout 3rd-party games that seem to divide gamers:

Madworld: For me, not much replay value, once you got the hang of it. I dunno. I really liked the style, but it never grabbed me.
Conduit: Great example of the graphics not making a game. It looked great on the Wii, but it was way too white-toast for me. Both single- and multi-player were way too generic for me to enjoy them at all. I pre-ordered this the moment I could, but traded it in after a week.
Zack & Wiki: Beautiful, amazing, thoughtful game... but no reason to play it again, really. This saddens me, because out of all the Wii games I play and have played, this game showed me what the system could do if people really tried.
House of Dead Overkill: More mindless fun than you can fit in a dump truck, but the hand-holding, "meh" bosses and framerate hiccups made me feel like I never got a polished product.

These games just didn't make me feel like I'd gotten a full game, a polished game, or a game that reflected what the Wii could do.

On another level, we have Boom Blox: Bash Party; CoD World at War and MW: Reflex; Tiger Woods 2010, RE:4, and Okami. Three of those are ports, but is that really a problem? They're fun as hell, and that's all that counts, for me. The thing that makes me sad, though, is that these games aren't given the props they deserve, for the most part.

I think devs need to realize that Wii owners still want quality. Imagine that. (Here's my dream: In the realm of FPSes, if you took the graphics and button-mapping of the Conduit, the story-telling of RE:4, and the multi-player customization and layering of CoD:MW, you'd have a game that would be a killer-app. Throw in some INTELLIGENT use of M+, and I'd be in heaven.)

Two words for you Capcom (and this applies to all those other cry-baby 3rd parties, like Sega):

DEMO DISC

It's easy enough. Put together a collection of demo's for games you want consumers to buy and make said collection available, via disc, to consumers. Either work out a deal to pack in the demo disc with an issue of Nintendo Power each year, or offer consumers the ability to order (for free) a disc off your website. The demo disc can include a handful of already released titles and a collection of soon to be released titles. Then pack it with some videos and viola, easy marketing. This plan isn't cheap and might take some effort, but I imagine the payoff could be worth it.

I know for a fact that I haven't played every Capcom (or Sega) game on the Wii because I know that Wii games are VERY hit and miss (moreso than on the other consoles), but at least on the other consoles, demo's are easily accessable. Of course, one counter point might be "rentals" to try these titles - and to that I'd say, why force me to rent a game for a week - that I could potentially finish and be done with - when instead you can give me a taste for free, and if I enjoy I might just go buy it.

And I don't want to hear any bitching that it's Nintendo's responsibiltiy to market demo's, because it's not. Capcom, you have the funds to do this, so do it. Start right now, go back to the start of your Wii catalog and pick 8-10 games that didn't sell well, put those games demo's on a disc and offer that disc for free on your website (Sega, you do the same). See if there's a payoff and if there is, continue doing it once a year (preferably in Sept/Oct before the holiday season!).

As both a PS3 owner (3 of them in my house), and a Wii owner (2 of), with a black Wii as my latest purchase, I have to say Nintendo has only one real problem.... they don't see anything outside Nintendo... it's been reported before that Nintendo's support, from a console point of view, to 3rd parties has often been patchy and reticent to say the least, although this is apparently improving. It's managed to tap into a rich vein of consumers (that group many call 'casuals', and often through gritted teeth), that for the most part has not been viable from the MS and Sony standpoints.

But the issue is, is that while Nintendo has a right to ensure the long term success of it's console by trying to minimise risk by providing titles that are pretty much guaranteed to be a success, it also needs to look at new IPs, more games like Zelda, rather than expect 3rd parties to attempt to port their IPs to a less capable hardware, or try to establish a new IP in what is a fairly fickle demographic. Although there is no doubt that Nintendo can produce good, fun games, the propensity to stay with Mario/Zelda/Pokemon cannot consistently produce year-on-year profits forever.

Also I think that while Sony and Microsoft has underestimated the benefits or motion control (esp. for younger children), I also think that Nintendo has made a huge mistake in failing to capitalise on online gaming - Wii Sports Resort, for example, could be great fun playing online, plus the game with it's bundling with recent hardware and, on it's own, bundling of Motion Plus would mena the game would have a large install base.

It's funny how these topics always bring up the asshole inside all of us...

One person agrees with the statement, one person criticizes the statement and usually follows it with either some kind of "too little too late" comment or "no shit sherlock" comment, one person encourages the Wii to continue to get better, one criticizes the Wii and says that it should just give up, one person finally figures out that people will always criticize the Wii whenever there's a chance that it'll actually appeal to them (as if they're in denial), one person trolls for the sake of trolling, and one person keeps telling the troll to shut up but makes a jerk-ish comment that gets them downvoted too.

......and then you put all these into some kind of bingo ball mixer and pull them out every three to five minutes.

And every once in a while someone will shout out "MAKE AN EDIT BUTTON JOYSTIQ".

I for one am glad that I won't have to rummage through a plethora of 3rd party titles to find some quality games. There's plenty there already and if they can produce big epic games instead of tons of sub-par titles I'm all on board.

Also like to say one of my first games for the Wii was House of the Dead Overkill and luving it!! I couldn't play that game on the ps3 or xbox without the gun, just wouldn't feel right.