Topic: Capcom has a lot of Wii games planned, but...

[Smash_Brother]

Why are you so convinced that it's just non-gamers buying Wiis?

The current Wii tie-in ratio is around 5:1, meaning that either non-gamers buy more games than gamers do or that there are still a sh*tload of gamers buying Wiis.

Both Castlevania games sold well on the DS and yet the DS is largely regarded as a non-gamer system, and yet these are the epitome of "gamer" games. When the userbase is large enough, it just doesn't matter any more. When there's a big enough pie to go around, your game can still be a million seller even if it only appeals to 5% of the people who own the console, hence why so many developers chose to develop for the PS2 (and still are choosing to do so).

Granted, the Wii doesn't have those numbers yet, but I'm quite certain that it will in Japan alone, forget the fact that the US is likewise apesh*t over the thing.

I agree that E-T games have a higher potential marketshare because of their ratings, but M games are still being developed and as such it's not a question of which rating will sell better but a question of on which system the M games will sell the most copies. Once the Wii reaches 20 million, I'd put my money on the Wii.

[KDR_11k]

Why are you so convinced that it's just non-gamers buying Wiis?

Why do you think I said ONLY non-gamers buy the Wii? I said a large number of them buy the Wii which means a large part of the userbase is non-gamers.

Both Castlevania games sold well on the DS and yet the DS is largely regarded as a non-gamer system, and yet these are the epitome of "gamer" games.

However they aren't exactly "mature" games either. They do have violence but it's so abstract that the average non/lapsed gamer wouldn't object. Castlevania is a pretty simple game concept at its core and not that hard to understand.

I agree that E-T games have a higher potential marketshare because of their ratings, but M games are still being developed and as such it's not a question of which rating will sell better but a question of on which system the M games will sell the most copies. Once the Wii reaches 20 million, I'd put my money on the Wii.

It'll be a while until the Wii is at 20 million and for now I'd rather aim E-T games at the Wii. It may not be a system only for kids but E-T is still a safe bet in any case.

[thetransformerscollector]

isnt godfather and MK both coming out at the same time, wait till those games get relased and see how well they sell. I expect Mk to sell alot because its every MK character ever made and it uses the remote to get more interactive. trying to remeber all those fatalities has become a real chore, but waving the remote around looks to be a lot easier and more fun too.  

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k It'll be a while until the Wii is at 20 million and for now I'd rather aim E-T games at the Wii. It may not be a system only for kids but E-T is still a safe bet in any case.

But that's the same logic which killed the GC's chances at the mature market. There are a lot of gamers who prefer M rated games and they even constitute the majority of their library. By snubbing those gamers in the beginning of a console's life, it sets a precedent for the remainder of its life, one which the GC was NEVER able to shake.

Do you realize that Halo has outsold EVERY GAME ON THE GC despite carrying an M rating? You can't say M games have limited selling power when NO title on the GC outsold it (or outsold Halo 2, for that matter).

I say get the M games out there and get them out there in force. Want to kill the 360? Hit it where it COUNTS: the adult gamer market. Make sure there's no image disparity between the 360 and the Wii. Nintendo finally seems to understand that, in this market, image is EVERYTHING and by allowing the GC's image to go to sh*t, they let the GC go with it.

I understand M games aren't your prerogative, but that doesn't mean Nintendo should avoid trying to capture those sales as well.

Luckily, the prerogative of EA, Ubi, Midway and Rockstar is to release M or even AO games on the Wii and I wish them the utmost success in their efforts.

[KDR_11k]

But that's the same logic which killed the GC's chances at the mature market. There are a lot of gamers who prefer M rated games and they even constitute the majority of their library. By snubbing those gamers in the beginning of a console's life, it sets a precedent for the remainder of its life, one which the GC was NEVER able to shake.

As a third party it's hardly Capcom's job to fix that. If Nintendo wants those "mature" games they should ask themselves how much it's worth to them.

Do you realize that Halo has outsold EVERY GAME ON THE GC despite carrying an M rating?

Yes but I doubt that would have happened if Halo was on the GC.

I understand M games aren't your prerogative, but that doesn't mean Nintendo should avoid trying to capture those sales as well.

We're talking about Capcom, not Nintendo.

[Kairon]

According to this interview with keiji inafune, mega man creator as well as executive for the recently released lost planet, Mr. Inafune believes that western developers are leading the industry and that he found internal resistance with his dead rising and lost planet projects. It seems to me that capcom's internal creative talent may be more interested in traditionally western style games than other things at the moment.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Smash_Brother]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k As a third party it's hardly Capcom's job to fix that. If Nintendo wants those "mature" games they should ask themselves how much it's worth to them.

Don't you remember the news stories about Reggie Regginating Rockstar? I think MH2 might be a direct result of that.

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Yes but I doubt that would have happened if Halo was on the GC.

All the more reason to try and avoid a similar precedent for the Wii.

Let's be honest: the Wii has the family market in the bag anyway. It's the most non-gamer friendly console and it's also the cheapest by a LONG shot. The trouble area will be the T-M games where the target audience typically has a great deal more money to spend on gaming.

By your own logic, Nintendo should be trying harder for the hardcore segment since A) they're going to be the hardest to reach and B) they run the tie-in ratio up far more than non-gamers do.

The non-gamers are guaranteed and definitely help to expand the market, but if they TRULY want to be the console for "everyone" they have to bring the M games and/or encourage 3rd parties to do so, and like I said, they already have EA, Ubi, Midway and even Rockstar doing just that.

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We're talking about Capcom, not Nintendo.

And I thought we agreed that Capcom has the business sense of a lemming.

I can't think of any better way to illustrate the practice of intentionally producing the most games on the LEAST popular consoles than to compare it to a rodent which happily leaps to its own demise.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I think the point tring to be made here is that if Capcom has mature games that they want to produce, they shouldn't feel like the can't release them on the Wii or that they have to downgrade the content for the Wii version because thats the only way its gonna sell. If the game is good(and marketed as such) it will sell on the Wii.

Capcom (or any company for that matter) saying that they would rather bring E rated games for the family to the Wii and leave the M rated adult content on the 360 or PS3 is making a huge error in userbase of the Wii.

We all know where Nintendos internal development focus is and thats why they leave it up to the 3rd parties to fill in those gaps*. But the 3rd parties, such as Capcom, have to step up and deliver that content if the want there to be a userbase for said content. They can't not release the M rated games and say "but there is no market for them", they have to create that market or give that market a reason to be where they are trying to go.

The reason why the GC hever really had any mature content audience was because only a handful of M rated games were released, and when they were they were either very poor (RE4 is the exception) or very piss poor ports from the earlier released PS2 verison. If I'm looking for mature content and the GC only has a handful of mature games while the PS2 has a truck load, I'm gonna go get a PS2 and probably buy all those games for my PS2 while I'm at it. The mature content audience was there, but the 3d parties just starved them for so long, eventually they had to go somewhere else to eat.


*Nintendo is trying to do something in the area of more mature with Distaster: DoC & Project HAMMER.
Sometimes you have to lead by example, even if the games don't turn out very well, you have to prove that the audience is there. Bring the games and the audience will come.  

[Smash_Brother]

Sorry, I kinda let the focus drift away from Capcom into M games on Nintendo consoles in general.

[zakkiel]

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Those teenagers would play a game that's aimed at everyone (which does not mean children here, something that doesn't involve a lot of violence but doesn't look like a cartoon either). Sure, they'd buy a "mature" game too but the rest of the users won't. Therefore a "mature" game would have a smaller potential userbase than a less violent game.

That's always true, yet somehow mature games manage to sell massive numbers.  

[Artimus]

If you build it (M), they will come.

[Kairon]

No, other way around there buddy.

If WE buy it, they will come.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Smash_Brother]

Catch-22, sadly: no M games means no M gamers, which means no M game demand which, in turn, means no M games. That's what happened early on in the GC's life.

The fact that Nintendo is taking steps to avoid that same stigma with the Wii is just one more piece of evidence which truly shows that Nintendo has finally acquired a clue.

[Kairon]

Now if only Nintendo gamers would get one too...

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Smash_Brother]

Thing is, Nintendo gamers are generally good about adopting franchises which are made exclusive to their consoles or at least games which are chosen selectively for their consoles.

Sonic Adventure 2 on the Cube only sold slightly less than the original SA did on the DC (2.42 mil to 2.33 mil)  and Super Monkey Ball sold 1.35 million copies, not a bad day's work either.

I'll personally be renting all of these M games through gamefly and if I like 'em, I might wind up keeping a few.

I agree, though, that Nintendo gamers can be some of the biggest xenophobes when it comes to game choices.

[denjet78]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
If WE buy it, they will come.

I don't like this argument at all. It skims over one really important question: Buy what exactly? Anything that 3rd parties are willing to throw at us? If we don't buy their shovelware then we're not worthy enough for anything that might actually be good?

Well developed titles that actually have some effort and thought put into them will sell. That has nothing to do with whether the title received and "M" or an "E" rating. The game has to be worthy of purchase first. If Umbrella Chronicles turns out to be Gun Survivor with Wiimote pointing is anyone going to buy it? If it fails though Capcom will use it as a yard stick to say that their games won't sell on Wii.

Is that true? Absolutely not. Only an honest try with a real quality game can show that. Are we going to get that honest and quality try with Umbrella Chronicles? I don't know yet, but I'm highly suspicious.

[Kairon]

When Nintendo gamers have pooh-poohed million selling hits like GTA, MGS, FF, GoW, God of War, and countless other games that are examples of exactly what third parties have to offer if they came on board, then it seems clear that Nintendo gamers are viewing games through biased and cracked lenses.

The problem with Nintendo gamers is not that they don't buy good games, it's that they REFUSE to see them.

This sort of elitism is close-minded, counter-productive, poisonous, and is what's keeping us in the Nintendo Ghetto.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[KDR_11k]

But the 3rd parties, such as Capcom, have to step up and deliver that content if the want there to be a userbase for said content.

I doubt they care, that market is going to exist on some console anyway. If the Wii doesn't get the right userbase, what's to stop them from making the game for the 360 then?

[Ceric]

God of War wasn't third party for the record.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
But the 3rd parties, such as Capcom, have to step up and deliver that content if the want there to be a userbase for said content.

I doubt they care, that market is going to exist on some console anyway. If the Wii doesn't get the right userbase, what's to stop them from making the game for the 360 then?

Thats why Nintendo is also taking the initiative to make something geared more towards the "mature" community themselves. If people by M rated Nintendo games, then all the 3rd parties will know that "M" games do sell cause the audience is there. That way Capcom(& other 3rd parties) will know that if they have a "M" game they can put it on the Wii too.

Besides if  Capcom were to solely stick to the 360 userbase, and for whatever reason it gets too saturated with too many of the same type of games, their bread might go stale and their butter will have somebody elses crumbs all over it. Thats why it would be good to branch out, and the sooner the better. Money and market share that could've been had but wasn't is money & marketshare that is lost.

edit: I feel like this response was better suited fo the "Capcom still hates money" thread in "Other Systems".  

[Pittbboi]

Denjet, Kairon, I agree with the both of you.

Kairon, I don't think Nintendo gamers literally "pooh-pooh" these games. It's a defense mechanism. a mask to shield from the pain. All those games you mentioned moved the industry last gen in ways not even Nintendo's best managed to, and yet those are games that did not see the light of day on the Cube. As a Cube gamer, you had to learn to cope with the fact that, though you were going to be getting high quality Nintendo games, you were going to be missing out on the best most third parties had to offer. For a lot of gamers, the best way to cope with that loss was demonizing those games. You don't miss a game if you convince yourself that it MUST be crap. Conversely, you don't miss other games if you also convince yourself that Nintendo games are the only ones worth purchasing.

Nintendo fans calling those great games crap because they're not on Nintendo consoles is a bad image, to be sure, but it's also highly superficial. Trust me, if any of those games you mentioned were ever announced for the Wii the mass pooh-poohing would quickly turn into mass hysteria.

denjet78, I totally agree. A Nintendo first party game won't do it, no matter how good it is. 3rd parties will just write that off as Wii gamers only wanting Nintendo games. No, it's going to take Nintendo appealing to a major third party developer to make an epic game for the Wii and put other third parties to shame. Nintendo gamers are HUNGRY. Contrary to popular belief, we WANT those games, and we WILL buy them. If Nintendo can convince Square, or Konami, or any other major third party to take a chance and make just ONE big game for the Wii, it WILL get supported and it WILL sell big, and it'll make other third parties feel so stupid for thinking that we didn't want their games.

But, again, it's going to take Nintendo totally sucking up to developers, MS style. I just hope they're more willing to do that.  

[Kairon]

That... and us showing that we're hungry by buying such games, Pittboi.

Nothing's more convincing than proven, achievable, numerated profits.

~Carmine "Cai" M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Pittbboi]

Heck, at this point, I'm willing to buy a game that I usually wouldn't just to support the Wii. But I'll ONLY do that if it's a game that looks like whoever made it gave a crap about quality, and wasn't just tossing garbage our way to make a buck.

It's a tight rope to walk. On one hand, I'm willing to do my part to see that the Wii gets support...but at the same time, I don't want to buy any game that'll encourage developers to believe that they can shovel us anything and we'll buy it. If Wii becomes that console, we're never see developers actually trying.
I want to buy Manhunt 2 for the Wii because I want to encourage more games like this for the console, even if it's really just a title that I would usually just rent for a week. But at the same time, I want all this PS2 porting to end. The Wii should NOT become associated with the PS2 UNLESS the Wii versions of these games are getting significant graphical and gameplay upgrades.  

[oohhboy]

I have no idea what you guys brought a GC for, but I buy Nintendo because they attract the type of games I like. Games of high quality. GTA is not a game of quality. FF is not fun, between TOS and FF, TOS all the way. I brought MGS:TT. Although it is unfortunate that God of War will not grace any other console outside of Sony, I played it on hard all the way.

I just find that games on a Nintendo console are much "tighter", more polished.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: KDR_11k If the Wii doesn't get the right userbase, what's to stop them from making the game for the 360 then?

That's just it: the Wii IS going to get the right userbase, and we know that because developers are already bringing mature franchises to the Wii, some of them the most controversial ever.

The Wii needs M titles in order to be established as a console fit for M titles, and it's getting those, meaning that Capcom is going to be shut out from a LOT of sales when the Wii reaches a strong userbase, especially one which compares to that of the PS2.

And to answer an advance question with a question, which console sold more M titles, the Xbox or the PS2?

Exactly.