Resident Evil 6, DmC below expectations, Capcom cites 'excessive outsourcing'
Capcom has announced its fiscal year earnings, pointing out that it came in below its initial projections due to overseas outsourcing and a late entry to downloadable content.
Capcom recently cited its earnings for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, and fell short of its targets. The company's analysis concluded that this was due to a drop in quality due to overseas outsourcing, and that poor retail sales ended up hurting its digital content projections by extension.
Capcom's analysis (PDF) shows that its net sales and income all fell short of its earliest projections, but were in line with its revised projections from December. Resident Evil 6 and DmC: Devil May Cry similarly fell short of their original projections, but almost hit the revised numbers. Capcom initially projected 7 million units of RE6, then revised to 5 million and hit 4.9 million. DmC was initially projected to hit 2 million, then revised to 1.2 million, and managed to hit 1.15 million.
Capcom points out that it had a "delayed response" to the digital content market, "insufficient coordination" between its marketing and game development, and a "decline in quality due to excessive outsourcing." It claims it has "strictly reevaluated" works in progress, and that it will focus more on in-house development and DLC. It also points out that in the coming year it hopes to strengthen its mobile development.
For the next year, the company is counting on Monster Hunter 4, Lost Planet 3, the console versions of Resident Evil: Revelations, and other unnamed "major titles."
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replySteve Watts posted a new article, Resident Evil 6, DmC below expectations, Capcom cites 'excessive outsourcing'.
Capcom has announced its fiscal year earnings, pointing out that it came in below its initial projections due to overseas outsourcing and a late entry to downloadable content.-
"Dirty Gaijin made our games bad and now dirty gaijins won't buy it =("
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Capcom is just so terrible. Not in in a sinister way, just in a sad and pathetic way. It's like they have no idea what they are doing and are just grasping desperately at straws.-
Working with Western studios was Capcom's late-2008 strategy, when Inafune was R&D director. But Capcom's long-term execution of that strategy was abysmal. The biggest success out of that was Blue Castle with Dead Rising 2, enough for Capcom to acquire them. However, during that time Capcom scared off Inafune, watered down Resident Evil into a third-person action caricature of other big franchises like Gears of War, and they rode Street Fighter 4's success into the ground with too many re-releases and tie-ins, and alienated their loyal fan base to the point where Seth Killian left, and Christian Svensson started hinting at wanting to go single-player story mode, in a fighting franchise that has never really had it (AFAIK, Street Fighter isn't on the same lore level as Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, Dead or Alive, or Soul Calibur).
Capcom also had way too much blind pride in their strategy. The same could be said of EA right now. THQ already died off because their pride phase was years ago, and they couldn't pivot in time. However, social / mobile isn't "the answer". There is no "the answer"; diversification is key, and not alienating your fans helps maintain a legion of brand ambassadors, to hold onto what EA means, what Capcom means. Right now, those companies are too busy reinventing themselves to get hold of what they are.-
I agree completely, that's a very insightful look into that point. Many companies these days just seem so detached from the consumer. I guess it's just a matter of the inflating market. When a industry is small it can more attune itself to it's consumers, but now games are on the same level of bloat as film, music, etc.
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Another problem is that big publishers are actively trying to make AAA games that ARE films, and still think that's okay to do. Most of those efforts fail, and instead of stopping and taking a look at what's going on, most of those executives are going back in and making more of the same mistakes, or are dumping everything and chasing whales and MAUs via pay-to-win on social or mobile.
I know that publishers need to maximize revenue, but they also have a duty to serve and further the artform. If they don't, the indies will have to pick up the pieces and take over.
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Ninja Theory did an EXCELLENT job with DmC and Resident Evil 6 was great.
Just lots of gamers with many opinions, but no money to lay down.
They refuse change and this is the most ludicrous thing I've ever hear/read of.
To imagine that a series will not change and it will stay the same forever is bordering on the insane.
To think that all your games will sell 10 million copies aka Call of Duty numbers is also insane.
COD is popcorn fun for the masses.
Resident Evil and DmC is about as niche as it gets. The steps they took on both of those series where not only prudent, but necessary.-
Except not. Your entire argument is flawed.
Yes, DMC before now has been a niche series, and in trying to BROADEN their audience, they lessened it. That is exactly the opposite of an excellent game. Ninja Theory fucked up so hard it is amazing. When you manage to both garner no NEW customers and alienate many of your established base, you have made a terrible game.-
No, you are completely incorrect. DmC was a fantastic, well made game. There is really no argument there.
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The gameplay was slower and dumbed down, the writing was painfully bad, the art-design was laughable. There are plenty of arguments about it being terrible. And the sales back that up. I'd never appeal to popularity, except in cases where other facts back it up.
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You may be right about the gameplay, but you are almost exclusively wrong about everything else. The art design was stellar and probably the best part about the game. I actually think you are the first person I've seen to try and condemn the game for it, in fact. The writing was probably the most comparable thing between past Devil May Cry games, except this time they had actual arks for characters and a cohesive story. I'm sorry you didn't like the game, but that doesn't mean it was terrible by any stretch.
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Arcs? Arcs for what? Did Dante saying 'Fuck' every five seconds constitute an arc? Or maybe you mean Virgil's idiotic face-heel-turn out of nowhere. Or maybe Dante celebrating the fact that his brother murdered a woman and her baby in cold blood, and then explicitly talks in detail about how hard he got from seeing the baby 'Come out in bloody chunks' of it's mother's womb when she was shot. When you write a story and the primary antagonist is more likeable than the protagonist, you are doing something terribly wrong. Now that's not to say I think all stories should be the same, but for a simplistic series like DMC you do not need to shake up the 'Likeable good guy, unlikeable badguy' paradigm. Oh, and the Twitter ending? Where Taneem inserted himself? Ungodly bad.
I'm assuming you thought I didn't actually play the game, but I did, and I know how terrible the writing is, don't try to defend it. It and the art-style were childish and grimdark and wannabe-edgy, and Ninja Theory once again proved they have no idea what they are doing with either game-play or writing.
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You're correct. But it being terrible and also selling poorly does solidify that is in fact a terrible game. It's passable on it's best day, and that's just barely.
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Agreed, just finished DmC and it's amazing. Incredible level design. Like any time you're walking in an area you just know it's about to crack open and go crazy, so impressive how it's rare that a level stays still. The news channel level/boss was amazing too, had me in stitches. The combat is great too, they crammed so many options into an intuitive setup. Fun story too, great game. Loved Enslaved too.
Too much too! I just love Ninja Theory. :(
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But it always looks like a good idea to the guys up top... And then you end up reworking everything that comes back and you feel like it didn't save you much time in the end.
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Except DmC was a great game. It wasn't a shitty result so much as unrealistic sales expectations. Exactly like Square tossing Eidos under the bus despite selling millions of copies of their games.
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And yet big companies continue to do it.
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It's not really that.
The market is just super saturated and gamers don't seem compelled to buy the latest games anymore, probably because games today are so homogenous.
Meanwhile, production costs have spiraled out of control to the point where every publisher needs their game to perform at COD-esque levels in order to make money.-
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Certainly all these games need are next gen graffix to generate interest...
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Abusing your fan base with over-priced DLC and constant re-issues of games (making your fan base just wait for the "complete edition") isn't profitable. No surprises here.
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