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Playstation/Gaming Discussions => PS3 Discussion => Topic started by: Living-In-Clip on April 20, 2003, 12:59:54 AM
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From Gamespot.com
According to Bloomberg Japan, Capcom has declared 19.5 billion yen ($163 million) in losses for its 2002 fiscal year. While its losses where originally estimated at 12.7 billion yen ($106 million), Capcom explained that its major titles sold below expectations. Biohazard 0 (Resident Evil 0) for the Nintendo GameCube was expected to sell 1.42 million copies but sold only 1.12 million. Devil May Cry 2 for the Sony PlayStation 2 sold 1.4 million copies instead of the expected 1.66 million. Clock Tower 3, which was also released for the PlayStation 2, sold 250,000 copies instead of the expected 450,000. Capcom released Chaos Legion (PS2) and P.N. 03 (GC) in March as part of an effort to meet its sales goals for the year, but the sales of the additional games did not offset its losses.
The company\'s losses were also attributed to the cancellation of projects that were not likely to be profitable. Capcom has terminated 18 games out of approximately 100 currently in development. This is the first time that Capcom has canceled nearly 20 percent of its projects. The development funds spent on these terminated projects will be declared as special losses, totaling 5 billion yen ($41 million). No specific games were revealed in the cancellation announcement.
Capcom vice president Heiji Oshima said that one of the reasons for the decline in sales was some of its titles simply didn\'t suit the market\'s demand. From now on, Capcom will strengthen its evaluation structure in order to better assess projects before they go into development. Capcom will also begin to frequently evaluate games in the middle of their development and immediately cancel any projects that may not suit the interests of the market.
Oshima also said that Capcom currently does not have any plans to merge with another company, although he does not know about the future. Oshima believes that Capcom has enough competitive edge to survive on its own at the current time.
This is terrible news. Eighteen projects canceled? Are by chance any of these projects the one\'s announced last year? The massive NGC projects? And what other projects? I find it extremely depressing that we may miss out on some great games , due to lack of sales.
With that said - this is just further proof that the gaming industry has hit a slump and I don\'t mean just a regular down sale season. Every company is reporting losses and every company isn\'t sure what their future is goin\' to be. Mergers are happening and some companies are not openly speaking that they are unsure what their status will be a year from now.
On another note, this down slump is effecting us, the gamers even more. Capcom has been known to put out niche titles and now that will be gone. The article quotes them as saying that projects will be evaluated more often and ones that do not fit the interest of the current market, will be canceled. This means we may never see games like \'Viewful Joe\' or \'Killer 7\'.
Also of interest is how bad performance was on games like Resident Evil 0, Devil May Cry 2 and even Clocktower 3. While no one expected Clocktower 3 to be a blockbuster, the other two should of been sure fire sellers , espically DMC2 with the PS2 installed base.
Note: I did not post this in the Debate or Discussion section - as I don\'t want to have to deal with people goin\' "I told you so!" and throwing insults. News like this is serious. When companies as large and popular as Capcom start taking hits (along with Namco / Sega and others) this large, then there is something wrong with the industry.
Any thoughts ? Why is this down slump lasting so long? Will it recover? How is the industry goin\' to fare?
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yeah, it does suck that they have canned so many games.... and yeah i agree dmc2 (hough not played it, but from what i have heard) sucks, and some of there other sequels, i hope it doest last long, i like capcom.. and most of there games
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DMC2 should have sold a lot less:mad:
As for Chaos Legion they havent advertised it much.
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:rolleyes: Ugh.. I think you\'re overreacting a bit here. Just like Square, Cacom will bounce back, surely. Don\'t forget E3 is just
around, that\'ll emit a spark the industry needs. Specifically, imo
Capcom hurt themselves by the NGC exclusivity which didn\'t pay
em off as well as they thought. The sales numbers are the
hard cold facts.
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I knew (http://www.gametrigger.net/message/viewthread.php?tid=1050) you were going to have a heart attack.
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It is their own fault, DMC2 was crap and deserved to have poor sales.
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Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
From Gamespot.com
With that said - this is just further proof that the gaming industry has hit a slump and I don\'t mean just a regular down sale season. Every company is reporting losses and every company isn\'t sure what their future is goin\' to be. Mergers are happening and some companies are not openly speaking that they are unsure what their status will be a year from now.
Any thoughts ? Why is this down slump lasting so long? Will it recover? How is the industry goin\' to fare?
To sum it up, though, I don\'t think it\'s a major slump in the market. Hardware and software sales are at an all-time high, yet we seem to keep hearing about all these major Japanese companies are taking massive hits. Why? Because Japanese developers are losing the sway they had in the 8/16 and even 32 bit generations. American (and European) developers are starting to have major impact on the markets and the market is changing accordingly.
Unfortunate for those of us who have a penchant for Japanese styled games. Though, the projects couldn\'t have been too promising for them to be cancelled. If they were expected to be major sellers, I doubt they would have been cancelled. Such as the NGC 5.
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I think Kop and Unicorn miss the point. Just because it is a "bad game" doesn\'t equal bad sales, espically when you take in account that the previous game in the series was a "Greatest Hit" and a critical claim.
And Bobo - I still have yet to see one of those great American games you mention. And the American that are being somewhat succesful, seem to be limited by the genre they are doin\' (FPS mostly).
{*...Waits for someone to scream "Bungie" and "Retro"..* }
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L-I-C I said that because I hated it.I am very disappointed.I am mad at Capcom for ruining a game with potential.They harried it up because they knew it would sell well after the first game\'s success.I wished it sold bad so they would get their lesson:(
Bad CAPCOM.BAAAAAAAAD!!!:mad:
Fingers crossed for a better DMC3.
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Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
I think Kop and Unicorn miss the point. Just because it is a "bad game" doesn\'t equal bad sales, espically when you take in account that the previous game in the series was a "Greatest Hit" and a critical claim.
And Bobo - I still have yet to see one of those great American games you mention. And the American that are being somewhat succesful, seem to be limited by the genre they are doin\' (FPS mostly).
{*...Waits for someone to scream "Bungie" and "Retro"..* }
I didn\'t mention any great American games. I\'m saying that American (and European) developers are starting to catch up with the Japanese developement community as far as importance and popularity is concerned, and as such the Japanese development community it taking a hit.
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yea, i meant i didnt like how they rushed it, and put out a half assed game which, there fore didnt sell as much.. and im more concerened with games not getting released, maybe they should plan them from the beginning a lot more better, rather than spending millions, they decciding its not good, or having to spend more to change it, into a half decent game
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The game being bad probably had nothing to do with sales. How many crap sequels sell, durin\' a normal year? Too many. Espically the first sequel to a series - that is the one where everyone learns they are being "screwed". It isn\'t until the third or fourth that sales slump off.
By all means, DMC2 should of sold like hotcakes. It didn\'t, due to the fact the industry is in a slump.
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Unless I\'m reading this wrong, they didn\'t actually lose money last year. They just didn\'t earn as much as they had hoped for. Selling 1.4 million copies of a crappy sequel is by no means a loss.
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This means we may never see games like \'Viewful Joe\' or \'Killer 7\'.
If you take away my Killer 7 you might as well as take away my air.
Other than that, good to see so many crappy games with no hope of selling get cancelled.
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MagicBox recently reported a rumor stating that the Online Tekki game was one of the games cancelled.
It was a sure fire loss anyways, no big deal.
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I\'d scream "NOOOO" (I own Tekki / Steel Battalion) but it would of been broadband only, so I had no hopes of enjoying it ever.
:(
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CAPCOM will comes out with a great game every 10 years or so and then make 10 thousand sequels on each title..
In the 80\'s - the Street Fighter 2 series
In the 90\'s - the RE series & the gazillion me-too 2D fighting games.
In the 00\'s - Omimusha & DMC series & RE
I don\'t really have that much of a respect for them...especially the RE series...they really should put the zombies at rest.
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The odd thing is, you trash Capcom - yet their games are some of the most highly praised games ever. Also the longest running series - and why are they? Because Capcom continues to improve upon their formula, which is more than the rest of the developers can say (*cough* Konami, Square and etc *cough*).
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Originally posted by Living-In-Clip
The odd thing is, you trash Capcom - yet their games are some of the most highly praised games ever. Also the longest running series - and why are they? Because Capcom continues to improve upon their formula, which is more than the rest of the developers can say (*cough* Konami, Square and etc *cough*).
Good point L-I-C
I respect Capcom and yeah even though they\'ve had some bad games (Resident Evil Gun Survivor Series,Resident Evil 0,Devil May Cry 2 etc) they continue to churn out quality games, and I think that they will make that money back eventually because for every 1 or 2 bad games they make they release about 5 or 6 great ones.
Every games company makes mistakes once in a while.
Look at it this way,for example, Rare HAD the potential but blew it because they got cocky and now they are bankrupt.
Capcom can afford to be arrogant, just like Konami (they still lost a lot of money on Pro Evolution Soccer,cause of Fifa,and they got cocky with MGS2:Substance) and maybe, just maybe Square (I say maybe cause a bad Final Fantasy game and the fans could lose a LOT of trust)
Overall,I\'ve read a lot of good points here ladies and gentlemen.
Goodnight :D
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Improving on the formula is just a fancy term for rehashing. Face it, Capcom=The King of rehashes.
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Then what is Nintendo? Come on, all they do is improve upon the formula and I see nothing wrong with that.
What is wrong with having a bunch of character\'s that people love and want to continue playin as? As long as the company does improve upon the formula , I see no problems.
It\'s just like movies. If the writers and directors can keep offering us great original and fun stories of some of our favorite characters - then who cares if it is yet another sequel?
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Nintendo=The same formula of a game every 2 years or so. Each original in it\'s own way(Ie Ocarina Of Time and Majora\'s Mask). Those aren\'t rehashes, those are sequals. Big difference.
Capcom=the same forumula of a game every .5 years, and this includes multiple series. And games like Mario and Zelda are massive. Games like Street Fighter it\'s impossible to drastically improve the forumale or change it because you simply can\'t do that in fighting games. And what else can you do in games like RE besides put a player in a scary place then try to scare them? Nothing. An idea isn\'t original after the time.
And keep in mind I said king of rehashes. No one is rehashing more than Capcom, no one.
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massive. Games like Street Fighter it\'s impossible to drastically improve the forumale or change it because you simply can\'t do that in fighting games
Plenty of people will beg to difer on that one. That statement shows me you have not played the SF series that much . Almost all of them are changed, drastic changes in some cases. Each new SF requires the player to adjust and learn new skills - which is why SF is simply the best fighting series.
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LIC, dont try saying that the street fighters arent rehashes.
Lets see their is Street Fighter, Pressure Pad Street Fighter, 6-Button Street Fighter, Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter II Turbo Championship Edition, Hyper Street Fighter II Championship Edition, Super Street Fighter II, Hyper Super Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha II, Street Fighter II Fighter Turbo. Damn thats just the Street Fighter II\'s, and I AM SURE Im missing about 8 or 10. Dont make me get into Street Fighter III, if their is one.
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You don\'t even know if there is a Street Fighter 3 and you want to argue this? I guess you want to bring up Alpha and EX spin-off\'s in the process?
Let\'s clear up some logic.
First off, Alpha and Alpha 2 are not part of the Street Fighter 2 line. They are prequels and not only that - they are almost completely different. Then, let\'s clear something else up. Alpha, Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 are almost all completely different games. If you actually played them, you\'d know that.
As for the SF2 games - yes they did do many fo those. Still, most of them added new features and had a following of fans who either loved or hated the new idea\'s. The Street Fighter series does not rehash - it evoles. Each game was part of an evolution and testing to see what the fans liked and didn\'t.
I\'m surprised you didn\'t add "Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo" into your list.
If you want to complain about Capcom rehashing, at least bring up something decent like Mega Man - which while some of those have new features (and continue to sell well) are still mostly rehashs. But what company doesn\'t have at least one genre it rehashes? Give me a break
(* Waits for RE to be mentioned as a rehash, for I can shoot that down..*)
And by the way - list actual SF games. Not ones you have zero clue about. 6-Button Street Fighter? WTF?
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i couldnt help myself, and went out and bought dmc2, its not as bad as i expected, though can see some bad things in it, but ive heard its too easy, cos u can just shoot from miles off, and not use your sword, so instead, ive been using my sword more, getting in close, therefore making more fun
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kopking, thats what I did cause you can only get Showtimes! from using the swords, and thats one of the objectives in order to getting the all important S ranking.
I used the Vendetta sword and kept changing through my guns, although I used the Rocket Launcher and Submachine guns mostly.
It\'s not a bad game, it\'s just too damn easy.
I\'ve completed it on all difficulties and when you complete dante must die mode, you unlock Trish, from Devil May Cry.
She has Dantes moves from the first one but for coolness you have to unlock her.
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yea, i have completeld it with both characters, is rather easy..... the flying enemies are annoying, cos u cant get good ranks on them..........