Disheartening sales numbers from Capcom
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009Christian Svensson, Corporate Officer/VP of Strategic Planning & Business Development over at Capcom has recently been elaborating on a few misconceptions regarding some of their sales figures, namely for Zack and Wiki: The Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure and Okami.
It was previously thought by some that Zack and Wiki sold a respectable amount of copies, with some sources citing numbers approaching 500,000. However, according to Svensson, “[Zack and Wiki] did not sell 500k units, or anywhere near it”. In his post, Svensson seems to show a hint of resentment, and with good reason; Zack and Wiki was a fresh, creative game that was entirely suited to the Wii’s point-and-click interface, and it breathed new life into the genre. What’s more, it was met with raving applause and was backed with a substantial marketing campaign, and yet it still managed to bomb at retail.
For such a fantastic and original title to go unnoticed by many really is disheartening. With that said, however, perhaps the biggest shame here is that you could easily pick up Zack and Wiki for £15 or less, and the same goes for Okami, and if you haven’t already, make it your duty as a gamer to do so.
Zack and Wiki was an original take on the Point-and-Click genre, but failed to recoup its costs
After the Wii was announced, during the time when everybody was thinking how great a Wii iteration or remake of <insert franchise/game here> would be, the PS2 sleeper hit started to surface in gamer’s imaginations because Okami seemed like a perfect fit to Nintendo’s console; utilising the Celestial Brish with the Wii Remote seemed like second nature, and so the campaign began. For months, fans clamoured for a Wii port of Amaterasu’s adventure, and those who missed the masterpiece the first time round vowed not to make the same mistake again when the Wii version was released.
Fast forward a few months; Capcom announce that ReadyAtDawn Studios are hard at work on the title. The fans rejoice; the game would be released with seemingly improved controls, in 480p, in 16:9 widescreen, and with a fresh start. It all looked promising.
In the weeks before Okami’s re-release, reviewers found themselves falling in love with the game all over again. Receiving perfect scores from the likes of 1Up and EuroGamer, the title managed to generate an average score of 90/100, and to this day it’s heralded as one of the best games available on the Wii. Of course, this was expected; Okami was only 2 years old and still held all the awe and inspirational beauty found in the original - the wow factor was still there.
Okami's brilliance wasn't reflected in its sales
So with all the hype and universal acclaim, it’s still a wonder to me that the Wii version of Okami “is not on track to outsell the PS2 version”. That’s right, the PS2 version which is usually seen as a commercial disaster actually sold more than the Wii version with all its additions and surrounding hype.
So where did it all go wrong? Many believe that Capcom were wrong to publish the game at full price, stating that they could find the original on the PS2 for £10. Some blame the lack of advertising for the game’s disappointing sales. However, I believe that a marketing campaign on the scale of Zack and Wiki would’ve been rather hopeless and not exactly beneficial; would the average Wii-owning family be drawn to the game from a TV advert like they would with something like Big Beach Sports? Likely not. There is the possibility, however, that Okami almost reached its market potential on the PS2. Despite its relatively weak sales, they weren’t disgraceful for such a niche title.
Perhaps I’m naive for thinking that there was a market on the Wii for such a niche, core, 50+ hour title; the title didn’t sell well on the PS2, the greatest selling console of all time, with an install base of over 100 million. Despite this, however, I am somewhat baffled and genuinely disheartened about these sad state of affairs.
However, maybe I can sleep easy tonight after all; “Okami has been moderately successful”.
Source - GoNintendo
