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[Wazzim]

Any reasons why it didn't sell well? It's a good game and had more commercials on tv than the whole Vita brand.

 

[Gospel]

Any reasons why it didn't sell well? It's a good game and had more commercials on tv than the whole Vita brand.

Revelations had commercials? I certainly didn't see any but I know The Mercenaries 3D did.

 

[BassForever]

That's really bad no matter how you look at it.

How exactly is that "really bad"? Maybe it's not the million some people thought it would be, but as long as the title was profitable for Capcom you can't call the sales "really bad". Save really bad for bomba titles.

 

[Wazzim]

Revelations had commercials? I certainly didn't see any but I know The Mercenaries 3D did.

It did in Europe.

 

[Metallix87]

Only half million for RE:R isn't happening. It must be already over that.

Indeed. As I've said before, chances are it hits around 600k worldwide by summer.

 

[Mpl90]

It did in Europe.

Thank Nintendo for that, since Nintendo published and promoted the game here. And these are much less costs for Capcom, pure profit.

 

[Gospel]

It did in Europe.

Shame they didn't do the same for the US.

 

[Wazzim]

How exactly is that "really bad"? Maybe it's not the million some people thought it would be, but as long as the title was profitable for Capcom you can't call the sales "really bad". Save really bad for bomba titles.

Mario Kart can be profitable at 500k too, doesn't change the fact that the sales are bad.

 

[Dalthien]

Your argument is still not making sense here. They finalized a product, then proceeded to ship another. It doesn't matter if we call them the same team and budget both products at the same time because they're shipping different products.

We can switch to Assassin's Creed if you prefer a more similar situation. Revelations started and ended development during the development of Assassin's Creed 3, and is being worked on by many of the same studios and people. That does not make it getting two games for the price of one.

But AC3 has a distinct and separate budget from Revelations (or more likely, the Assassin's Creed project as a whole has its own annual budget based on a new game being released each year). That's really not a comparable situation. Mercs came about as a result from the development of Revelations. It was a technology test to see what could be done for Revelations, and the results turned out so well, that they realized they could just throw it together into a separate game to have it out near launch for 3DS.

Unlike the words you're trying to put in my mouth, I never said they were, just that they are clearly showing that they have aspirations well beyond 1.5 million copies.

Do you think the sales of Asura's Wrath are solid just because they never listed expectations for it?

I really didn't follow the development process of Asura's Wrath close enough to know just how big of a failure it was for Capcom. But again, the fact that they didn't give projections for the game tells me that they probably didn't expect 800k+ for the title. They very well may have been expecting 500-600k for it, and will fall well short of that.

Capcom routinely offers up their initial projections for games, then cuts them back each quarter as they realize that demand won't actually meet up with their expectations. Quite often we will see a game start out with an expectation of 3 million, then cut back to 2.2M next quarter, then cut again to 1.8M the following quarter, etc. RE:R never showed up with even an early expectation - so it's very difficult for me to believe that they ever expected 800k+ for it.

And given (as you said yourself) that they basically sent it out to die since all of their marketing efforts were geared towards Raccoon City and RE6 - that tells me that Capcom knew all along that they weren't going to put a substantial marketing effort behind the title. Which would explain why they never expected it to sell big numbers.

And for the record, I'm not all that impressed with the sales of RE:R. I think it had the potential (and the quality) to do a good deal better than it has done. But it seems clear to me that Capcom probably only expected something in the 700-750k range for the game, and I think it is likely to reach that ballpark. Throw in the sales of Mercs, and they will be well over a million in sales for the budget, which I think will be just fine for what they were planning.

 

[Chris1964]

When is Capcom's FY report? Every big title must have underperformed except Monster Hunter.

 

[Ignis Fatuus]

When is Capcom's FY report? Every big title must have underperformed except Monster Hunter.

God I hope Operation Raccoon Shitty bombed so hard that Capcom will never outsource another franchise again.

 

[Sammy Samusu]

When is Capcom's FY report? Every big title must have underperformed except Monster Hunter.

May 7th

Mercenaries shipped 400k, so Revelations should be above that (hopefully, lol).

 

[Chris1964]

Mercenaries shipped 400k, so Revelations should be above that (hopefully, lol).

Is this a joke? Japan and USA alone are over that.

 

[Spieler Eins]

It did in Europe.

I didn't see anything in German-speaking media. Not even on gaming websites or anything.

 

[frankie_baby]

May 7th

Mercenaries shipped 400k, so Revelations should be above that (hopefully, lol).

As a guess it should've SHIPPED about 600k

 

[electroplankton]

I don't think you understand my argument.

I'm saying that Resident Evil: Revelations cost many times more than Harvest Moon 3DS, despite not selling twice as much.

It's selling like games with a significantly lower cost despite being a very high effort handheld title. This is the bar by which I judge its sales mediocre.

I don't think a comparison like that is reasonable.
Brain Training 2 sold 5mln in Japan; Final Fantasy III sold 1mln. The latter costed way more than the former, but it sold only 1/5 of the former... Is there any problem?

We should see how Capcom expected from Revelations.

 

[Spiegel]

Sales expectations can change during development too. We'll probably know if Capcom is truly pleased with those sales if RE:R gets a sequel.

 

[Nirolak]

But AC3 has a distinct and separate budget from Revelations (or more likely, the Assassin's Creed project as a whole has its own annual budget based on a new game being released each year). That's really not a comparable situation. Mercs came about as a result from the development of Revelations. It was a technology test to see what could be done for Revelations, and the results turned out so well, that they realized they could just throw it together into a separate game to have it out near launch for 3DS.

I will accept this argument if you are willing to assert one of the following:

1.) Resident Evil: Revelations was originally assigned a budget of X. Fleshing out Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D cost Y. Resident Evil: Revelations budget was readjusted to X-Y.
2.) Resident Evil: Revelations originally had both a Mercenaries mode and a RAID mode, but the Mercenaries mode was removed from the product and sold as a separate game, effectively creating scenario 1.

Also, if you can link to a statement asserting one of these points, I would like to make a thread discussing Capcom's business practices.

I really didn't follow the development process of Asura's Wrath close enough to know just how big of a failure it was for Capcom. But again, the fact that they didn't give projections for the game tells me that they probably didn't expect 800k+ for the title. They very well may have been expecting 500-600k for it, and will fall well short of that.

Capcom routinely offers up their initial projections for games, then cuts them back each quarter as they realize that demand won't actually meet up with their expectations. Quite often we will see a game start out with an expectation of 3 million, then cut back to 2.2M next quarter, then cut again to 1.8M the following quarter, etc. RE:R never showed up with even an early expectation - so it's very difficult for me to believe that they ever expected 800k+ for it.

And given (as you said yourself) that they basically sent it out to die since all of their marketing efforts were geared towards Raccoon City and RE6 - that tells me that Capcom knew all along that they weren't going to put a substantial marketing effort behind the title. Which would explain why they never expected it to sell big numbers.

And for the record, I'm not all that impressed with the sales of RE:R. I think it had the potential (and the quality) to do a good deal better than it has done. But it seems clear to me that Capcom probably only expected something in the 700-750k range for the game, and I think it is likely to reach that ballpark. Throw in the sales of Mercs, and they will be well over a million in sales for the budget, which I think will be just fine for what they were planning.

With the word mediocre, I'm not actually trying to imply something all that different from what you are.

What I mean by that is that it missed its potential by a fair amount as opposed to actually being an unprofitable or notably below financial expectations game for Capcom.

Bad is what I assign to a game that misses financial expectations in a way that it might cause a company to miss earnings numbers or indicate serious decline in interest for a once notably more popular franchise. Both Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Kingdom Hearts 3D seem far more likely to do that to me, especially since Square Enix was more profitable than expected in the first half of the year, but didn't raise its fiscal guidance for the full year. If they now miss their expectations, this means they missed them by even more than they were expecting when they lowered their expectations before.

Capcom on the other hand will be largely unaffected by how Resident Evil: Revelations did, and the game is not a notable enough entry in the series to imply a drop in interest in Resident Evil products as a whole.

I don't think a comparison like that is reasonable.
Brain Training 2 sold 5mln in Japan; Final Fantasy III sold 1mln. The latter costed way more than the former, but it sold only 1/5 of the former... Is there any problem?

We should see how Capcom expected from Revelations.

I feel my base argument doesn't apply when you're already at blockbuster status on a system, because at that point you're investing for all the benefits having a major franchise generates in terms of halo effects, co-marketing deals, merchandizing, hardware influence, and king making.

However, when your sales are significantly lower than that, I feel the return on investment of a product becomes significantly more notable when deciding if it is a good idea to make a product.

It's not very easy for Square Enix to come up with a different, lower budget handheld game that is going to sell 1 million copies. It is not nearly as hard for Capcom to figure out a lower budget product that could sell in the range of 250K or more.

Sales expectations can change during development too. We'll probably know if Capcom is truly pleased with those sales if RE:R gets a sequel.

I agree. Their actions will ultimately speak the loudest.

 

[Shurayuki]

I didn't see anything in German-speaking media. Not even on gaming websites or anything.

Same, thought I just missed it since I don't pay too much attention but I recall absolutely nothing on RE:R (Vita ads are 24/7 though to me).

 

[Dalthien]

I will accept this argument if you are willing to assert one of the following:

1.) Resident Evil: Revelations was originally assigned a budget of X. Fleshing out Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D cost Y. Resident Evil: Revelations budget was readjusted to X-Y.
2.) Resident Evil: Revelations originally had both a Mercenaries mode and a RAID mode, but the Mercenaries mode was removed from the product and sold as a separate game, effectively creating scenario 1.

Also, if you can link to a statement asserting one of these points, I would like to make a thread discussing Capcom's business practices.

No, I can't definitively assert either of those points. And I never intended to make either argument. I have no doubt that Mercs added to the cost of Revelations. But Mercs added a good 50%+ to the revenue stream, while adding far, far less than that to the costs of the project.

From reading through various interviews with Kawata (producer), the gist of it all is this:

The project was initially green-lit as a single game (Revelations) for the 3DS. Early on in dev process, they were trying to figure out what the 3DS was capable of and they ported RE5 to the 3DS and got it running. It turned out far better than they had anticipated, and they got the idea that they could make a separate Mercs game based off of RE5. And since a huge chunk of the work that they would have to put into Mercs would be work that they would have to put into Revelations anyway - it gave them the opportunity to get a 2nd game developed at the same time and with the same team, and with much of the work being applied to both games.

They started all the initial R&D work with the full team together, and then split the team into two to work on the two separate games. And then once Mercs was finished, rejoined the split group back into a single unit to finish up Revelations. A lot of the work that the Mercs squad worked on was brought into Revelations, and they specifically worked on Raid Mode after Mercs was finished.

Kawata even mentioned in one interview that a lot of the staff for the project was outsourced, and that a lot of the same outsourced staff was even working on both Mercs and Revelations at the same time. Even the outsourced component of the game ended up getting split into two squads instead of bringing on an extra outsourced team.

There was one original team (internal for core components, outsourced for most other stuff) put in place for Revelations. When the idea came up to split off a 2nd game out of the project, they didn't add a 2nd team to the project - they just split off the original team, and had them work on both games together, sharing much of the work between both projects. And Revelations finished up on schedule. So Mercs didn't even add to the development time of the original project. I'm sure there were some extra overtime costs, and some people who probably would have been part-time originally ended up being full-time for a while, and whatnot. But all in all, they largely got two games out of what was originally set up to be a team for just Revelations. It was a very different situation than the examples you were referring to with Ass Creed Revelations and Ass Creed 3.

With the word mediocre, I'm not actually trying to imply something all that different from what you are.

What I mean by that is that it missed its potential by a fair amount as opposed to actually being an unprofitable or notably below financial expectations game for Capcom.

Yeah, the more we flesh out this discussion, I'm realizing that we are more on the same page than not.

Bad is what I assign to a game that misses financial expectations in a way that it might cause a company to miss earnings numbers or indicate serious decline in interest for a once notably more popular franchise. Both Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Kingdom Hearts 3D seem far more likely to do that to me, especially since Square Enix was more profitable than expected in the first half of the year, but didn't raise its fiscal guidance for the full year. If they now miss their expectations, this means they missed them by even more than they were expecting when they lowered their expectations before.

I'd just point out that Japan is a relatively small piece of the KH picture. For Kingdom Hearts (well, at least KH games not released on PSP), the series sells considerably more worldwide than in Japan. KH1, KH2, CoM, 358/2, Re:Coded all sold more (and in some cases, a LOT more) in the US than in Japan, and that's not even taking into account Europe.

That's not to say that DDD won't ultimately disappoint in the west as well, because it may. But as of now, falling a couple hundred thousand below expectations in Japan won't be a big deal for SE if it ends up holding serve in the west. And even then, we likely won't know for a while, because KH games in the west have legs and typically sell a pretty small percentage of their totals in the first month.

Sales expectations can change during development too. We'll probably know if Capcom is truly pleased with those sales if RE:R gets a sequel.

This is a fair point.

 

[nordique]

That's really bad no matter how you look at it.

I dunno. I may be wrong about this, but I thought half a million was what Capcom was targeting?

edit: I realized there may not have been a projection, period

Only half million for RE:R isn't happening. It must be already over that.

That is really good news, do you know what the number is currently?

 

[king zell]

another bundle

 

[electroplankton]

another bundle

We already knew that but the overal packaging is simply gorgeous!

 

[Ruud_Luiten]

Capcom said they were happy with the sales and considering a revelations2 title....
There was a topic on neogaf about this...

 

[Truth101]

another bundle

So jealous of Japan. =c

 

[BassForever]

Capcom said they were happy with the sales and considering a revelations2 title....
There was a topic on neogaf about this...

That was before the game actually launched in the US and was based upon how it was doing in Japan.

Edit: Came out in PAL one day after Japanese release, my mistake

 

[Sammy Samusu]

That is really good news, do you know what the number is currently?

More than 250k in Japan and more than 100k in North America, let's say 50k in Europe.

So about 400k sold and probably more than 500k shipped (all this through Mar 31).

 

[electroplankton]

That was before the game actually launched in the US/PAL regions and was based upon how it was doing in Japan.

How come?
The game was released almost simultaneously in Japan and Europe.

Btw, I think in the interview Capcom was talking abount the development outcomes; they saw they could achieve great results with 3DS hardware, and that reviews were pretty good, so they said they could consider to make another RE entry on the console, since they have the engine and the gameplay ready to be used.

 

[BassForever]

How come?
The game was released almost simultaneously in Japan and Europe.

Btw, I think in the interview Capcom was talking abount the development outcomes; they saw they could achieve great results with 3DS hardware, and that reviews were pretty good, so they said they could consider to make another RE entry on the console, since they have the engine and the gameplay ready to be used.

Whoops yeah you're right, I thought the PAL release was later.

And here it the quote in question from the article

When we conducted our interview, Revelations had just debuted in Japan and was the #1 selling game in the country. Noting that this game had a more old school, survival horror focus than other Resident Evil games, we asked if this commercial reception encouraged him to continue this approach with future installments.

Link to thread in question http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=465164

 

[Chris1964]

Media Create White Paper

Vita 2011

hw: 439.986
3G: 261.820
Wi-Fi: 178.166

sw: 502.435

 

[Spiegel]

How many 3DS bundles and colors have been released?

It feels like there's a new one every other week

 

[Truth101]

Media Create White Paper

Vita 2011

hw: 439.986
3G: 261.820
Wi-Fi: 178.166

sw: 502.435

Do you have access to the white pages again this year then?

 

[frankie_baby]

How many 3DS bundles and colors have been released?

It feels like there's a new one every other week

Theres a cool pic of them all somewhere

 

[Busaiku]

How many 3DS bundles and colors have been released?

It feels like there's a new one every other week

Yet there are only like 4 colors in the US...

 

[Chris1964]

Do you have access to the white pages again this year then?

No. It was posted at geimin.

 

[cw_sasuke]

How many 3DS bundles and colors have been released?

It feels like there's a new one every other week

Gotta get them out before the redesign is announced.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

If the first Wii U 3D Mario game came out and debuted at 45% of Galaxy's opening, and then ended up with less sales than the opening week of Mario Galaxy overall despite being a very high effort production, would you feel this is in any way a good performance?

Reminds me of people freaking out that Galaxy released to a larger userbase and didn't match Sunshine's numbers.

 

[Bruno MB]

God I hope Operation Raccoon Shitty bombed so hard that Capcom will never outsource another franchise again.

They expect it to sell 2 million units xD

 

[Chris1964]

Gotta get them out before the redesign is announced.

Ah yes, that redesign that will drop 3D and include a second analog.

 

[electroplankton]

Ah yes, that redesign that will drop 3D and include a second analog.

Also: change the name.

 

[MasterSheen]

How many 3DS bundles and colors have been released?

It feels like there's a new one every other week

Here's the pic.

There is also a CoroCoro 3DS as well, so unless I'm missing something, that's 19 colors and bundles in total.

 

[test_account]

That is a lot of editions The 3 last ones are only avaliable through a contest though, but even without those 3, there are stil a lot of different editions of the 3DS.

 

[Fantastical]

They expect it to sell 2 million units xD

Dat Call of Duty audience.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

How exactly is that "really bad"? Maybe it's not the million some people thought it would be, but as long as the title was profitable for Capcom you can't call the sales "really bad". Save really bad for bomba titles.

It was a title that really was closer to console level in terms of production values: fully voiced, lot's of CG, the best graphics on the system and it's also the first RE game to have been dubbed to several languages in Europe.

600k is weak for the flagship core title of the 3DS.

I don't think we'll see any other RE on the 3DS (at least with such high production values)

 

[donny2112]

In order to not upset GEIMIN too much when they post the MC Top 1000, would it be possible to make the thread here, and then immediately move it to the Sales Archive forum?

The Sales Archive forums is only accessible to members, so it may be an easier pill for GEIMIN to take, but it'd still allow members to see the data. Just a thought.

 

[ShadowOS]

Here's the pic.




There is also a CoroCoro 3DS as well, so unless I'm missing something, that's 19 colors and bundles in total.

what is the one with the girls promoting? what is the one with the three people in silhouette promoting? i recognize the rest but not those two

 

[tuffy]

what is the one with the girls promoting? what is the one with the three people in silhouette promoting? i recognize the rest but not those two

All the + signs point to Love Plus.

 

[ShadowOS]

All the + signs point to Love Plus.

ty. i also found out the other one is a special gundam edition with a quote from char on it... i want that version

 

[electroplankton]

It was a title that really was closer to console level in terms of production values: fully voiced, lot's of CG, the best graphics on the system and it's also the first RE game to have been dubbed to several languages in Europe.

600k is weak for the flagship core title of the 3DS.

I don't think we'll see any other RE on the 3DS (at least with such high production values)

Honestly, I don't remember a lot of CG cutscenes.

 

[GhostTrick]

There's a lot of things that could explain low sales for RE:R.
First of all... advertissements...
I live in France, and there's 2 things wrongs about the advertising of the game... First of all, because of the law, 16+ games can be shown on TV only after 22:30.
Also... well, the RE:R TV spot was shitty.

What could explain those sales could also be because the game was released in a bad period. Let's see if it sell well in 1 year. I think it could be back at Christmas.