Capcom Disappointed With Darkside Chronicles Sales

[Stu]

It's still a commercial failure, though.

Despite not being released in one of the biggest territories yet? You don't think it's a bit early for that sort of comment?

[Jill Lover]

Capcom disappointed??? LOL

What about us then?

[randomwab]

Well, in comparison, when I looked around for the game in November, I couldn't see it anywhere, not in any Wii chart at all. Couldn't even see it anywhere in the Preowned section. I remember when UC came out it was in a lot of places, and I even found Preowned copies of UC in Game, still nothing of DSC.

(I personally think UC is a better game).

Darkside Chronicles came out November 27th, maybe that's why you couldn't find it? I mean, I've seen copies in Game, Sainsburys, Tesco, HMV and Asda. Infact, I saw that Tesco still had it as there number one Wii game as of last week.

[Carnivol]

General rule of thumb and reminder; VGChartz numbers aren't to be taken as good fish. They're good for a general/vague indication, but people in general seems to have an issue with them not always being reliable and accurate.


Nintendo doing publishing for Capcom in places that're outside the country-border of their regional HQ is nothing new. They've been doing this for quite a lot of titles (and as far as I know, they've always been doing it in the Nordic countries, via Unsaco/Bergsala.)


As for 16 000 units thrown out, that's not too bad for France. Should be enough to keep food on the table and roof over the heads of something like 3-4 French employees for a whole year, at least. I'd actually like to see what their expectations were... From experience with a few companies, I often get the feeling that a lot of people within them (especially in marketing) haven't got a clue what they're actually selling and keep having the most absurd expectations and predictions when it comes to sales.

[BrionIrons]

This should be a lesson learned to Capcom for being cheap asses and not listening to the fans.

They should have just remade RE2 and code veronica.They would have done alot better.

[Sunglasses]

General rule of thumb and reminder; VGChartz numbers aren't to be taken as good fish. They're good for a general/vague indication, but people in general seems to have an issue with them not always being reliable and accurate.

I do know that, they have a 10-15 percentage of error if you campare their numbers with those listed over the IRCapcom website, sure their numbers aren't perfectly accurate but they give a clear indication that the gap between UC and DSC in terms of sales is HUGE just in Europe.

Nintendo doing publishing for Capcom in places that're outside the country-border of their regional HQ is nothing new. They've been doing this for quite a lot of titles (and as far as I know, they've always been doing it in the Nordic countries, via Unsaco/Bergsala.)

A clear indication that for certan titles, Capcom prefers someone much more competent than Halifax.
I can speak just for the Italy now, but when 2 years ago UC was out there were lots of ads here and there over every GameStop, GameRush and commercial centre (same when RE5 was out)... this didn't happen with DSC now, it's like the game doesn not exist here. And since the marketing and the distribution is handled by Halifax I think it's their fault if a poorly advertised game does not sell as Capcom was expecting.

[Carnivol]

I love it when someone handles distribution and doesn't put on an effort to sell something (and entirely tries to leech off of some other product's fame and success).

I kinda hope all the lazy publishers vanish... they're not doing the world much good.

[Borman]

I just keep thinking that it didnt sell because no one wanted it, and Capcom failed to convince us that we SHOULD want it. So basically what Carnivol has been saying

[Alexia_Ashford]

I can't remember seeing hardly any adverts about DSC and it just appears to have faded into obscurity. There's too many on-rails shooters for the Wii now and it just feels saturated. There's only so much you can do with an on-rails shooter. You know, point and shoot.

[Karui]

Greed is what it boils down to.

[Stu]

Greed is what it boils down to.

How so? Explain.

[TheSelfishGene]

I just hope that the people at Capcom don't look at the discrepancy between UC sales and DSC sales and think that the answer for another release is 'MOAR WESKAR!'

[Dark_Chris]

I just hope that the people at Capcom don't look at the discrepancy between UC sales and DSC sales and think that the answer for another release is 'MOAR WESKAR!'

well new game with Wesker situated before RE5 could be cool, but EVERYTHING after RE5 will be bunch of shit

[L-e-W]

Well, this ain't good...I mean I loved DSC, and found it better than UC as well (even though I enjoyed that, too), but I guess it shows that the people buying Wii's are, as most people know by now, families with younger kids, "casual" audiences who focus more on just short playthroughs and games which don't require much thinking or memorization (or a need for extensive investments of one's time to complete), and so on. Mature-rated games haven't sold well on the system, and I think that was bound to be the case from the start. I mean, sure, the system has good games, ones that people recognized for their quality and which sold well (New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Tatsunoko VS Capcom...well....depending on how that sells over here, that is...and I'm not sure of the sales in Japan, Smash Bros. Brawl obviously, the list goes on), but I suppose people either are turned off by:
1. It being rated "M" (or "18+", or "D", or "15"...you get the picture..), thus that the whole family can't play and thus it limits the audience whcih the system is based on.
2. It's on-rails, and thus people are going to complain about not being able to move around when they shoot (this happened when I let my friends try Darkside...I should've known, but then again I am a rabid fan of light-gun games..)
3. Bad experiences with Umbrella Chronicles. Even though UC got generally good reviews, people weren't fond of it. So I suppose this was doomed from the start.

I mean, we'll have to wait and see about Japanese sales when it comes out next week over there, but I know that it won't be a smash hit like they wanted it to be. I suppose the one good thing is that this may show that enough is enough for rail shooters (they can be fun, but there IS such a thing as an overload of 'em), and may bring about the chances of a "free-roaming" RE game..but I even doubt that would occur, again, due to the target audience of the Wii.

I love the system, I really do, but I think that DC didn't have as much support as it needed, even from the start. I suppose we can just wait and see, but I dunno..

Ah well, I liked the game, and I got a copy, so I suppose that's what matters in the end, though.

[Grem]

Despite not being released in one of the biggest territories yet? You don't think it's a bit early for that sort of comment?

Okay. If at the end of the fiscal year (march 2010, am I correct?) Capcom manages to sell 800k copies of DSC (what they intended to do), then it will be a success. Otherwise, it will fail.

When you cannot reach what you expected to do in business, you fail.

DSC sales did not reach what Capcom expected in US and Europe, even during Christmas vacations! Do you really believe they're going to sell 800k copies in 2 months after the game being released one month ago?
Sure, Japanese sales could help, but I'm extremely skeptical on that.
Only time will tell, I guess.