Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City Japan Debut Sales & NECA Figures

[Darkmoon]

Bear in mind, Dracarys and News Bot, if I see anything that I count as a personal insult it's a week long ban.

It's pretty obvious the RE brand name alone won't sell titles. No one in there right mind would buy Resident Evil: Barry's Pretty Princess Dress-Me-Up aimed at 7-12 year old girls, for example, and no one really should.

On the other hand, it's silly to think Brand Name has no effect. Companies spend trillions on there brand. There's a reason there's been seven odd Saw movies, and why Coke doesn't change it's name to SupaCola (other than that's a dumb name). People bought RE5 because it had Resident Evil in the title - and in some cases, solely for that reason. Because they'd seen the movies and thought it would be cool.

It's why people are less willing to move away from a franchise, or at least a proven formula a successful franchise is based on - People will buy a name they know and enjoyed before rather than an unknown. It's just common sense. But it's certainly not the only factor.

In ORC's case, there's a reason Slant Six was willing to go to the expense and trouble of acquiring the Resident Evil brand for this game and, having seen how closely they matched previous Resident Evil titles in...well, anything I think it's safe to say that wanting to add to the universe or being huge fans can be safely written off. It's because they thought the name would attract more money that they thought it would cost them. If the RE name earned them nothing then it would have made more sense to make Operation Bad Guys Do Stuff set in Beaver Falls or some such with the Parasol Corporation and it's evil voodoo experiments gone wrong.

[News Bot]

Bear in mind, Dracarys and News Bot, if I see anything that I count as a personal insult it's a week long ban.

It's pretty obvious the RE brand name alone won't sell titles. No one in there right mind would buy Resident Evil: Barry's Pretty Princess Dress-Me-Up aimed at 7-12 year old girls, for example, and no one really should.

On the other hand, it's silly to think Brand Name has no effect. Companies spend trillions on there brand. There's a reason there's been seven odd Saw movies, and why Coke doesn't change it's name to SupaCola (other than that's a dumb name). People bought RE5 because it had Resident Evil in the title - and in some cases, solely for that reason. Because they'd seen the movies and thought it would be cool.

It's why people are less willing to move away from a franchise, or at least a proven formula a successful franchise is based on - People will buy a name they know and enjoyed before rather than an unknown. It's just common sense. But it's certainly not the only factor.

In ORC's case, there's a reason Slant Six was willing to go to the expense and trouble of acquiring the Resident Evil brand for this game and, having seen how closely they matched previous Resident Evil titles in...well, anything I think it's safe to say that wanting to add to the universe or being huge fans can be safely written off. It's because they thought the name would attract more money that they thought it would cost them. If the RE name earned them nothing then it would have made more sense to make Operation Bad Guys Do Stuff set in Beaver Falls or some such with the Parasol Corporation and it's evil voodoo experiments gone wrong.

Exactly. Nobody ever said brand name alone sold the game, only that it was a pretty big deal. In Revelations' case, the brand name didn't help because most people were unwilling to buy the 3DS just for that game. The 3DS itself has a fairly small userbase compared to the Big Three Consoles, and within that userbase, the Resident Evil fanbase is extremely small. As has already been stated:

And yes, the 3DS hurt Revelations quite badly. The main reason being that the 3DS did not have much of the Biohazard fan-base. (as Canas pointed out, the same reason PS2 sales of BH4 dwarfed the GameCube version despite the game being critically applauded, award-winning and well-liked, none of which apply to Operation Raccoon City). The main complaint you hear from people who haven't played Revelations is that they don't have a 3DS.

Of course this will be brushed over in favor of some dreamworld drivel.

If REV was released on the same platforms as ORC, it would have sold dramatically better. Common sense. They could port it to PSN and XBL right now and it would still sell better as a download than as a 3DS game. Ignoring these factors in favor of personal opinion over an objectively poor and sub-par game is just laughable.

[Darkmoon]

Careful, please. Really not in the mood to see yet more fighting between you two.

But on the topic...yes. I suspect there are quite a few people like me - I'd love to play Revelations, but won't buy a 3DS for it. I can play ORC whenever I want, but don't want to. Userbase must be considered a factor - they've sold around 17 million 3DS's globally, but there's about 150 million combined 360 and PS3's out there. Even taking into account some people have both the 360 alone has 67 million consoles out there - over four times the 3DS, but in reality ORC has not sold 4 times the numbers on the 360.

And yes, I'm using the VGchartz numbers because I have no idea where to find anything else.

ORC - 360 - Sales in First Four Weeks - 508,683
Revelations - 3DS - Sales in First Four Weeks - 443,629

So despite having access to somewhere in the region of four times the userbase, ORC only managed to sell somewhere around 60-100 thousand more copies than Revelations on a single console. I'm sure by user base to percentage bought numbers that doesn't portray ORC in a flattering light.

[Dracarys]

I pointed out already size of userbase does not directly translate to sales, with examples. RE name creates awareness only. I'm not sure why some people out to try and discredit this game in about every way possible that they cannot even admit sales are good without inventing excuses for why they are.

Not to pick holes in those numbers, but that is first 4 weeks without any japan sales, if we do the same for Revelations then Revelations sold only 210k in the first 4 weeks. Even until now half of Revelations sales are in japan, yet it only has about a third of the 3DS userbase, again leading back to the point about size of userbase not being an important factor.

[Darkmoon]

I pointed out already size of userbase does not directly translate to sales, with examples. RE name creates awareness only. I'm not sure why some people out to try and discredit this game in about every way possible that they cannot even admit sales are good without inventing excuses for why they are.

Userbase may not directly translate into sales, but it has an effect. That much is common sense. If you have a product you can sell to one person, and a product you can sell to four, the product that can sell to four will usually translate into higher sales. It's kinda mad to think that it has no impact on how many people would buy something. Because it pretty obviously does. See - me. I very much doubt I'm the only person who would buy Revelations if it was on a console I wished to own.

I'm not trying to discredit the game - I've never even played it, after all. I'm simply of the opinion that without Resident Evil in the title it's sales would have been lower.

Not to pick holes in those numbers, but that is first 4 weeks without any japan sales, if we do the same for Revelations then Revelations sold only 210k in the first 4 weeks. Even until now half of Revelations sales are in japan, yet it only has about a third of the 3DS userbase, again leading back to the point about size of userbase not being an important factor.

I forgot about that. Still, it will require ORC to sell a total of about 2 million units on the 360 in the first four weeks to have sold to the same percentage of people as Revelations has. And yes, I know, you don't think the number of people who own the console has any effect on the sales, which quite frankly I think is wrong and, honestly, utterly illogical.

[News Bot]

I pointed out already size of userbase does not directly translate to sales, with examples. RE name creates awareness only. I'm not sure why some people out to try and discredit this game in about every way possible that they cannot even admit sales are good without inventing excuses for why they are.

Not to pick holes in those numbers, but that is first 4 weeks without any japan sales, if we do the same for Revelations then Revelations sold only 210k in the first 4 weeks. Even until now half of Revelations sales are in japan, yet it only has about a third of the 3DS userbase, again leading back to the point about size of userbase not being an important factor.

"Awareness only"? Yeah, it's not like people buy a game or watch a movie based on how popular it is. Not sure why you're crying about people trying to discredit the game. It doesn't have much credit as it is. Maybe you should stop trying to defend the game in every possible way? How's the canon situation going?

And yet again:

And yes, the 3DS hurt Revelations quite badly. The main reason being that the 3DS did not have much of the Biohazard fan-base. (as Canas pointed out, the same reason PS2 sales of BH4 dwarfed the GameCube version despite the game being critically applauded, award-winning and well-liked, none of which apply to Operation Raccoon City). The main complaint you hear from people who haven't played Revelations is that they don't have a 3DS.

[Mr. Spencer]

Why don't you two just fuck already and get it over and done with?

[Darkmoon]

Thank you, John, for that lovely piece of Mindfuck Theater. Now behave.

[Mr. Spencer]

I'm already commissioning a skilled artist to draw the Rule 34 of the two as we speak.

[Darkmoon]

I have no idea what they look like, but I'm utterly certain it will be terrifying.

And you can't post it here, so there.

Now...back on topic...

[Mr. Spencer]

You might like it, she's the one fucking HIM.

[News Bot]

You might like it, she's the one fucking HIM.

Fucking my threshold for nonsense, maybe.

[Mr. Spencer]

Oh she'll be fucking your "threshold" alright. Heh, threshole.

[News Bot]

Tell them I held the line.