Topic: Capcom Discusses 'Ever-Shifting' Wii Market and Zack & Wiki Sales

[Penguin_Of_Thyme]

Capcom director talks about the company's difficulty in understanding the Wii marketplace, and reveals poor sales numbers for Zack & Wiki.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=20740

 When Capcom released Zack & Wiki: Quest For Barbaros' Treasure in late 2007, the adventure game received a great deal of critical acclaim and was highly promoted by the gaming media. Even with the positive word of mouth at launch, Chris Kramer, Capcom's senior director of communications, recently said that Zack & Wiki still "sold abysmally."    

In total, 126,000 copies of Zack & Wiki have been sold in North America since the game's release 26 months ago. Capcom isn't exactly sure why the game sold so few copies, but Kramer has a few ideas. He described the Wii as having "a very tough market to crack," and believes that for third-party developers it seems that "If you're not Nintendo, it does seem harder to make money on the Wii today compared to the PS3 and the Xbox 360."    

Kramer further cited the Wii market as "extremely scattered and chaotic," because "for any sort of solid statement you want to make about the platform or the audience," there are plentiful amounts of evidence that totally contradict them. For example, party games were extremely successful soon after the Wii launched; however, the market has now been saturated by that style of game. Overall, "third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wii audience is," said Kramer.    

Capcom Product Manager Colin Ferris said in an interview in March 2009 that he was willing to place some of the fault for Zack & Wiki's poor sales on the art design for the game's main character. Ferris said, "Well, you know, Zack and WikiÂ…Another one in a long line of very highly-rated Capcom games that unfortunately did not sell very well. We can take a part of the blame on ourselves by having it star a shirtless boy pirate. That is actually a personal favorite of a lot of people in Capcom, so donÂ’t be surprised if you see it again but we have nothing in the works at the moment."

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Hey guys, I've made an awsome game you've never heard of.  I don't have any copies to ship, and I made sure only the nerd media knows about it.

I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED IN THE MASS MARKET AUDIENCE, WHY ARE THESE CUSTOMERS SO MUCH SUCK?

[decoyman]

I was rather put off by the style, but when I tried the game, I became a believer.

Dear developers: Just because the Wii is "underpowered" doesn't mean every game on it has to be kiddeh-cartooneh! I'm glad they acknowledge some part of the blame at least.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I was rather put off by the style, but when I tried the game, I became a believer.

Dear developers: Just because the Wii is "underpowered" doesn't mean every game on it has to be kiddeh-cartooneh! I'm glad they acknowledge some part of the blame at least.

Unfortunately, they couldn't even embrace that component of the style to even attempt marketing at ze childrens.

[Chozo Ghost]

Who here has ever seen a Zack & Wiki commercial on TV? I sure as hell didn't. You can't blame consumers for not buying a product they have never even heard of. It is the responsibility of the game's maker (Capcom) to make that happen.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The interviewee is also forgetting to blame the console manufacturer for not providing free advertising.

[ShyGuy]

Wiki looks like a teletubby. DudeBros don't buy no stinking teletubby games!

(I purchased Z&W on day one and thoroughly enjoyed it.)

[Peachylala]

Folks, it has now come to MST3King this ****.

Capcom isn't exactly sure why the game sold so few copies, but Kramer has a few ideas.

We are already off to a great start already. Man your life boats because Cheep Cheeps have become feral!

He described the Wii as having "a very tough market to crack," and believes that for third-party developers it seems that "If you're not Nintendo, it does seem harder to make money on the Wii today compared to the PS3 and the Xbox 360."

Not mentioned is that if your games suck massive amounts of ass and only piss off the Nintendo fan base more, they won't make jack-****.

Kramer further cited the Wii market as "extremely scattered and chaotic," because "for any sort of solid statement you want to make about the platform or the audience, there are plentiful amounts of evidence that totally contradict them."

Kramer is doing a good job doing this right now and I am happy to report it will get better and more entertaining!

Overall, "third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wii audience is," said Kramer.

Universal appeal says hi. Advertising says hi. Niche game slit it's wrists/game case...?

Capcom Product Manager Colin Ferris said in an interview in March 2009 that he was willing to place some of the fault for Zack & Wiki's poor sales on the art design for the game's main character.

AD-VER-TISE-MENT. The best, new problem solver for those games third parties can't be assed to advertise.
 
 
 
 
 

[Ian Sane]

Zach & Wiki is a good game BUT it has Dreamcast graphics, childish visuals and probably one of the most unappealing names ever.  It's a game you have to have an open mind to try in which case you will likely enjoy it.  But if you have to have an open mind how can anyone expect decent sales?  Seriously if you knew nothing about the game and looked at the case would you ever for even a second assume it was anything worth a ****?  It's look like a sequel to Billy Hatcher.

[broodwars]

Honestly, I think probably Wiki's character design (and baby-like voice, for that matter); the name; the fact that it was a P&C Adventure game (which at that time was practically a dead genre, as I believe Telltale was just getting started on Sam & Max); it being a new IP; and it being given absolutely no advertising had more to do with Zack & Wiki's failure to sell than its art style.  After all, New Super Mario Bros. Wii looks even more like a Fischer Price game than Z&C with its rounded character designs and bright colors, and that certainly hasn't hurt its sales.

Z&C was an excellent game that sold far less than it should, but it by now means failed to sell "for no apparent reason."

[vudu]

Who here has ever seen a Zack & Wiki commercial on TV? I sure as hell didn't. You can't blame consumers for not buying a product they have never even heard of. It is the responsibility of the game's maker (Capcom) to make that happen.

This is all the advertising the game needed.  If Capcom had put this in  magazine ad it would have sold a million copies.



ANAGRAMS ARE YOUR FRIEND

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"Zach & Wiki is a good game BUT it has Dreamcast graphics,"

I don't believe you've ever played Dreamcast, so stop this.

[Jonnyboy117]

third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wii audience is

I've heard this a lot lately. It shows exactly what publishers don't understand. The Wii audience isn't one like-minded group. You don't "crack" it. Nintendo has done a great job of selling Wii to the most diverse audience ever assembled in gaming. It's impossible to create a game that will appeal to all of those people. Choose your segment, understand it, and go after it with gusto. You can't say "well Wii owners seem to be buying X, so let's clone that and dump it onto shelves". That doesn't work on any other console, so why should it work on Wii?

[Crimm]

Carnival Games is kind of a clone, but it undeniably picked a market to target: Wii Owners who only had Wii Sports.

[Morari]

Zach & Wiki is a good game BUT it has Dreamcast graphics [...]

Sold!

[BlackNMild2k1]

third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wii audience is

I've heard this a lot lately. It shows exactly what publishers don't understand. The Wii audience isn't one like-minded group. You don't "crack" it. Nintendo has done a great job of selling Wii to the most diverse audience ever assembled in gaming. It's impossible to create a game that will appeal to all of those people. Choose your segment, understand it, and go after it with gusto. You can't say "well Wii owners seem to be buying X, so let's clone that and dump it onto shelves". That doesn't work on any other console, so why should it work on Wii?

Seriously.

According to Kramer, "If you're not Nintendo, it does seem harder tomake money on the Wii today compared to the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It'sa very tough market to crack and is ever-shifting."

He recalls that when the Wii first launched in North America inNovember, 2006, simple casual or party games did so well that they soonsaturated the market. "Now, I don't even know what the market is," hesays. "

"Third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wiiaudience is," Kramer adds. "You can no longer say it is solely casualgamers or that only E-rated games own the space. For any sort of solidstatement you want to make about the platform or the audience, thereare enough opposite proofs to show that it is extremely scattered andchaotic."

Everyone dumps a ton of the same **** mini-games and then all the consumers decide they own enough **** mini/party games and now publishers are confused as to why their **** mini/party games don't sell.
That is the time to start advertising something different, but advertising is still something that the 3rd parties haven't seemed to figure out is needed. The Wii has so many different types of gamers of all age ranges and you need to find ways to reach all those people outside of ad banners on gaming centric sites.

Why is this so hard to figure out?

[Crimm]

Babyz Partyz 2: More Gamez and Fun

[Ian Sane]

I've heard this a lot lately. It shows exactly what publishers don't understand. The Wii audience isn't one like-minded group. You don't "crack" it. Nintendo has done a great job of selling Wii to the most diverse audience ever assembled in gaming. It's impossible to create a game that will appeal to all of those people. Choose your segment, understand it, and go after it with gusto. You can't say "well Wii owners seem to be buying X, so let's clone that and dump it onto shelves". That doesn't work on any other console, so why should it work on Wii?

Yeah, what was the PS2 audience?  Or the PS1, NES, or SNES audience?  It's the market leading console.  Wouldn't it make sense to assume it attracts the widest amount of demographics and therefore would have probably ALL audiences represented?  If they just treated it like they treated all other popular consoles from the get-go this would a non-issue.  Though now because third parties have screwed stuff up I don't know what the Wii audience is.  Has the crappy third party support scared away certain demographics?
 
I wonder if this would have never happened if Nintendo wasn't so vocal about this new audience stuff.  Like they could still do it but not be so descriptive about what they're doing.  They don't attract the blue ocean market because they say they do, it's because of what they do.  If they said nothing they probably would have been just as successful and third parties wouldn't be confused.  Not that I see this as something Nintendo could foresee it's just an interesting thing to think about.  They may have been too successful in making the Wii out to be different from all other consoles.

[Chozo Ghost]

The Wii does have some hardcore games. The problem is it just doesn't have enough of them in proportion to the rest of the library. The Wii has become the market leading console this generation, but at what cost? The cost seems to be that they lost Ian, whereas if Nintendo had remained in 2nd or 3rd place and struggled to gain recognition Ian and other fans might not have abandoned them. Even though the Gamecube did poorly in comparison to its competitors, who can deny the top-notch quality of Nintendo's hardcore A+ games? The GC didn't have 1st party shovelware like Wii Sports and Wii Play. Nintendo gave us Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and the other usual franchises, but they also introduced Pikmin, Geist, and several others (which unfortunately mostly failed).

This time around, Nintendo's new IPs are just non-game shovelware, and by bundling that with the system as a pack-in that kinda set the tone for the sort of games the system would have. Back in the days of the NES and SNES, Mario was the pack-in and that was a hardcore game so it set the mood for those systems as hardcore systems. Then we had the N64 and GC which did away with the pack-in (at least initially), and that might even have contributed to those system's failures. With the Wii Nintendo has re-introduced the concept of Pack-ins and that's great, or at least it would be great except for the fact the pack-in is a non-game with N64 level graphics. Maybe it would have been better if it didn't have any pack-in at all, or maybe it would have been better still if Zelda TP had been the bundled title. Who can say?

But this softcore tone for the Wii has been further exacerbated by the other non-games Nintendo has been shoveling out. By being bundled with a remote, Nintendo guaranteed Wii Play would be a hot seller and end up in the hands of million's of players. Wii Play, Wii Sports, Resort, and the Balance Board are  games that I think have more to blame with the current Wii market than anything else. When you look at sales figures, these games were consistently at the top of the charts and third parties look at these charts just as we do, and that's how they get their inspiration for what they should make.

But I think what 3rd parties don't realize is the only reason those games are so successful  is because they were bundled with either a system or a peripheral. It isn't because the market craves these games or because they are awesome or anything; its just because we wanted to get an extra remote and it happened that we could get Wii Play for $39.99 with a remote versus paying $49.99 for just a remote, which made it a no brainer. This inflated Wii Play's sales and made it seem like a huge hit, but Wii Play is just a collection of demos that got played for a few hours and has been collecting dust on player's shelves ever since then.

So we got these games just because of the peripherals/systems, and not because we liked them, and I think this is why 3rd parties are so confused and think the market is chaotic.

[Peachylala]

Of course, because the Gamecube thinking Nintendo had was SO successful! Screw taking time to polish the gameplay experience, they need to pull a Sega and rush the titles out for the holiday season.

end sarcasm

[BlackNMild2k1]

Wii Sports and Wii Play are not shovel ware.

Wii Sports is a sold game included for free with the system in most places and WiiPlay is a fun distraction bundled with hardware to add value at a minimum price.

Neither were thrown together on a shoestring budget and released hoping to sell enough copies to unsuspecting and uninformed consumers before word got out that it was crap.

[NWR_insanolord]

Yeah, I stopped reading that post when you called Wii Sports shovelware.

[Peachylala]

Wii Sports Resort is the best game I've played this decade. Party game my ass, I like my archery and sword fighting.

[Mop it up]

Zack and Wiki might have performed better if the box art didn't look like a Saturday morning cartoon that nobody's ever heard of. It was virtually indistinguishable from any license game garbage out there, and reviews don't seem to help Wii games as much as games on other systems.

You can't say "well Wii owners seem to be buying X, so let's clone that and dump it onto shelves". That doesn't work on any other console, so why should it work on Wii?

It seems to work with shooters on the XBox 360.

[ShyGuy]

Carnival Games is kind of a clone, but it undeniably picked a market to target: Wii Owners who only had Wii Sports.

Roght on the money.