Darkstalkers Resurrection opening sales deemed disappointing

Darkstalkers Resurrection was a sales disappointment in the opening month for Capcom, leading senior VP Christian Svensson to question if he misjudged fan interest in the series.

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Among Capcom's myriad of beloved classic titles, Darkstalkers stands out as one of its most requested fighting franchises. Capcom recently released Darkstalkers Resurrection on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but Capcom senior VP Christian Svensson says it was a sales disappointment, causing him to question of he misjudged the interest in the game.

Though it appeared on the top 10 lists for the PlayStation Store in March, Svennson told users on the Capcom Unity forums (via GameSpot) that, "sadly, it's not as high on that list as it really needs to be to be successful."

"We're working on promotions and the like to improve the situation. We've not given up," he said. "But I'm disappointed in the opening sales response relative to any other fighting title we've put out on the same platforms given the frequency and urgency of requests we've had here over the last several years and the quality of the execution. It is the most fully featured and probably best project of this type we've done."

But, he was careful to point the finger inward instead of at the fans. "And before people jump to the wrong conclusions, I'm not blaming fans who did buy it and supported the brand," he said. "I'm very thankful for those guys (thank you, to all of you). I'm more disappointed by my misread of the information in this particular case."

This may not be enough to kill hopes for a proper sequel, but Capcom must be looking to it as a bellwether of fan interest. If it concludes that this means people aren't interested in Darkstalkers, it may take another hiatus.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 11, 2013 8:25 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Darkstalkers Resurrection opening sales deemed disappointing.

    Darkstalkers Resurrection was a sales disappointment in the opening month for Capcom, leading senior VP Christian Svensson to question if he misjudged fan interest in the series.

    • reply
      April 11, 2013 8:36 AM

      Its sad because i think this may have less to do with customer interest but maybe just genre fatigue. Capcom has a long history of this, they release and release and unbelievable amount of fighting games consecutively and now along with DLC and they expect customers not get tired of the genre. Had they taken their time with spacing out these games then maybe this could've done better. I wonder how well street fight x tekken performed since i was lukeworm on the title by the time it came out.

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        April 11, 2013 7:11 PM

        I don't think that's the case, Darkstalkers is just much, much more of a niche game than any of the other oldschool releases they've done. Within the hardcore fighting game scene it is one of the most beloved titles, but has almost no awareness or interest outside of that.

        Whereas a lot of non-"hardcore" gamers will have played at least some SF2, MvC and SF3 and be likely to grab a copy of the re-releases, very few outside of the dedicated fighting game core will have any interest or curiosity about Darkstalkers.

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      April 11, 2013 8:39 AM

      I think I'm going to pick this up. Loved those games and I read some decent reviews.

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        April 11, 2013 9:15 AM

        It's actually a quite well done port/release mostly.

        Unlike the utterly shit Jojo's one they did half last year.

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          April 11, 2013 10:35 AM

          Jojo was bad? Crap, I'd been considering picking that up, since I loved the Dreamcast version.

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            April 11, 2013 10:42 AM

            Well, it depends what you're looking for.

            It's stable, etc, it's just that the population is tiny or nonexistant probably (Jojo's has never been popularin the US)

            The netcode is not very good (well, it's not GGPO, nor another rollback/clone - so if you are 'ok' with SF4 style netcode, it's 'fine')

            The version of the game it runs is not the same as the arcade - it's probably based on the Dreamcast version, but seems to have other minor changes.

            If you enjoyed playing the DC version vs the computer or something, you'd have no problem with this release. I just take the game a little too seriously, so it's frustrating to see them half-ass a release.

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            April 11, 2013 9:28 PM

            I have no idea where this jackoff is getting that Jojo's HD was a shit port. The only flaw with the port was that it was $20 instead of the usual $10/15 for these HD re-releases. That turned most people off, but if you are a fan of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or just want a game made when Capcom actually released quality fighting games it is worth every penny.

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      April 11, 2013 7:24 PM

      Mid-March 2010: Brian Leahy interviews Yoshinori Ono: http://www.shacknews.com/article/62834/super-street-fighter-4-producer

      Shack: Do you know your next project? If not, do you have a dream project you'd like to do?

      Yoshinori Ono: The project I really want to work on right now is to take my wife to Disneyland again. We've been married for 10 years and haven't been back since. That's my big project at the moment.

      As far as a dream project is concerned, there is another fighting game series established shortly after I started at Capcom. A little something called Darkstalkers. If I was given the resources and permission to do so, I'd love to make a new Darkstalkers.

      Shack: Would it use the Street Fighter IV engine?

      Yoshinori Ono: It would probably mimic the visual style, but because the animation in Darkstalkers involves a lot of exaggeration and deformation, it might require an actual Darkstalkers engine, so to speak. We'd probably have to work on it a lot.


      I know it would take a lot of money to make a proper Darkstalkers successor, but.... ARRRRRGH. Just remaking the original with no updated sprites isn't giving this franchise enough respect, after having brought back Morrigan and Felicia in MvC3.

      This would never happen, but if they're getting stuck at how to make it look right in 3D, maybe they should just go high-res 2D with the same kind of approach that Arc System Works uses with BlazBlue, which also has characters with crazy animations that would be hard to replicate with 3D models.

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      April 11, 2013 7:33 PM

      didn't even know this came out.

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      April 11, 2013 7:59 PM

      Too many games. Not enough money or free time.

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