Capcom is not happy with Zack & wiki sales. 1/08/10

OH NOES

Zack & Wiki has been out for 26 months. One month = 1000 copies sold, and then a bonus 100,000. In short, it sold 126,000 copies, which totally sucks. In addition, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles has sold under 16K.

"Third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wii audience is," Kramer adds. "You can no longer say it is solely casual gamers or that only E-rated games own the space."

Says Kramer, "For any sort of solid statement you want to make about the platform or the audience, there are enough opposite proofs to show that it is extremely scattered and chaotic."

I think it's all part of the fun that the audience is still not figured out. At the very least though it should be observed that the only rated M titles that sold over million (and yes, I would encourage M rated game sales to a minimum) on the Wii are theResident Evil and Call of Duty franchises.

It'sbeen debated a long time ago between Capcom being satisfied/dissatisfied with Zack & Wiki sales. So, what are you thoughts?

All developers need to do is make a good game, and market it properly.

Capcom made a good game with Z&W, but they did not market it. With Darkside chronicles, they made yet another rail shooter, and still did not market it properly.

The only peopple they can complain about are themselves.

At this point, I think the situation third parties find themselves in is a little humorous. Don't get me wrong; I want to see third parties do well on the Wii and create quality content that Wii owners (myself included) can enjoy, but it's hard not to think and feel that this is a situation that third parties have put themselves in more so than anyone else. I feel bad for games like Zack&Wiki, seeing as how it's one of the very few Wii games that deserved to be a stand-out title for the system and a new key IP for its publisher. However, it's a rare exception to a three year period that has been completely misunderstood, miscalculated, and mis-utilized by [major] third party publishers who insisted on believing that the Wii was in for a very short run as a console that was populated by those who just didn't know any better when it came to buying video games.

By no stretch of the imagination was Z&W treated like a potentially big-time franchise by Capcom, so to seem them complaining about the game's sales THIS LATE after the game's release is by large uncalled for. Despite being the one major third party publisher I actually respected early on in regards to Wii development, even Capcom has made some pretty poor decisions in regards to how to approach the system and its games, especially of late, with the exception of Monster Hunter Tri in Japan. If Capcom wants to stir the ship in the right direction again, it has two of the best examples when it comes to Wii third party projects to look at in MH3 and RE4 to view as valuable blueprints to their success. It does encourage me that Capcom is looking to make better quality games this year, as opposed to focusing on quantity to win the day, but they also need to make sure to drive their Wii products as something to really look forward to. I wish them well.

Still, if you're missing out on 60 million+ people, I think that's more than enough reason to believe that something isn't being done properly to cater to them. As a single person, I can talk about what I want until the cows come home, but this issue is more than just the opinion of one gamer or a group of gamers on a video game forum. Maybe there's still hope that one of these days, third party publishers who focuses on the Wii can figure out that in order to really find their place on the consoles, a collective "best foot" going to have to come forward. Otherwise, we'll continue to see articles like this one retreading the same worn-out road that has been traveled too many times already.

I heard its good but it looks like its for little kids. Capcom has made an effort on the wii maybe the best of the 3rd parties. Its just hard to make games sell when many of the people buying wii games buy 2 or 3 a year. Mario and a "Wii" game takes that up

I'm so damn tired of hearing about developers/publishers complaining about the sales of their games that "they" didn't want anyone to know about, or they didn't try on.

everyone knows that the industry has changed due to the Wii... and these developers keep making games that the "normal hobbiest gamer" doesn't want, and still expect the "ocassional gamer" that know nothing of it to buy it, or alone spend $50 on it. It's pure rubish, and they have no one to blame for themselves.

If they can't figure out the audience on a system... why don't they promote products or get out there and see what people actually want to play? It's called research, and I think they forgot how to do so. Just because the Wii has opened the doors, doesn't mean you can release anything on it and expect it to sell.

How much money did it cost to develop the game and how much was made as a profit?

Anyway, what other good games have they made after that one? Seriously, 3rd party developers need to come up with a game and please for the love of all that is good advertise the damn thing.

I heard its good but it looks like its for little kids. Capcom has made an effort on the wii maybe the best of the 3rd parties. Its just hard to make games sell when many of the people buying wii games buy 2 or 3 a year. Mario and a "Wii" game takes that up

Cruse34

I honestly haven't seen it being sold in stores for many months now which is a shame since I didn't get around to picking it up when it was available. It looked to be a really solid game so it's sad to see that it pretty much went unnoticed. It pretty much portrays itself as more of a kids game, despite actually being a quality title. Honestly, if I didn't know what the gameplay was like, I would pretty much glance past it. It's pretty much an unknown title sitting amongst all the more familiar branded shovelware or movie games which would stand out more to the average person. If they wanted this to sell, they should've at least done some marketing so that people had some idea of what it actually was. Otherwise, it looks more like shovelware amongst all the real shovelware. :P

On a side note, if Capcom wants my money, i'm still waiting for them to come to their senses and release that Wii exclusive 3rd-person Resident Evil game already!

OH NOES

Zack & Wiki has been out for 26 months. One month = 1000 copies sold, and then a bonus 100,000. In short, it sold 126,000 copies, which totally sucks. In addition, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles has sold under 16K.

"Third-party publishers are having a hard time determining who the Wii audience is," Kramer adds. "You can no longer say it is solely casual gamers or that only E-rated games own the space."

Says Kramer, "For any sort of solid statement you want to make about the platform or the audience, there are enough opposite proofs to show that it is extremely scattered and chaotic."

I think it's all part of the fun that the audience is still not figured out. At the very least though it should be observed that the only rated M titles that sold over million (and yes, I would encourage M rated game sales to a minimum) on the Wii are theResident Evil and Call of Duty franchises.

It'sbeen debated a long time ago between Capcom being satisfied/dissatisfied with Zack & Wiki sales. So, what are you thoughts?

wiifan001

dsc sold 16k in france.Zack and wiki sold in North America 126k. theres a ...huge difference. Btw in NA alone DSC is around 200k.obviously DSC at only near 300k isnt as hot as it should be, but the difference between 120k in almost 3 years and 200k in 1 month is...important for you to notice.

I disagree with pretty much all of that. I won't list everything I disagree with point-for-point, but what I will say is Zack & Wiki is a lot more than just a "point and click adventure". Z&W was one of the first games I bought for my Wii. It features the best use of the Wiimote that I've seen to date. Look into it a bit more, do some research and I'm sure you'll think it sounds interesting. This is why I bought a Wii. Not because of Z&W specifically, but because the Wii can do games like this. You couldn't do a Z&W on any other console. The Wii was made for games like Zack & Wiki. Maybe if people paid attention we'd be getting more good games like Z&W, instead of the crap we're getting today.x-2tha-z

Sepewrath wasn't talking about Z&W from a functional stanpoint, though. It's just that for as good as the game was (and I've played it a bit and became fond of it), it wasn't a game Capcom could just throw on store shelves and expect to sell itself, which is pretty much what happened. If you don't go to gaming sites, such as this one, you wouldn't be able to distinguish Z&W from a child-friendly-looking game of much inferior quality, and Capcom did nothing to make the game stand out. It's hard to pay attention to, much less buy, something that you know little of, and that's what hasn't been addressed about Wii games such as Z&W, Little King's Story, and possibly a few other games that I can't think of at the moment.

Well it seems that if it ain't made by Nintendo its not gonna sell well on the Wii.

I'm so damn tired of hearing about developers/publishers complaining about the sales of their games that "they" didn't want anyone to know about, or they didn't try on.

everyone knows that the industry has changed due to the Wii... and these developers keep making games that the "normal hobbiest gamer" doesn't want, and still expect the "ocassional gamer" that know nothing of it to buy it, or alone spend $50 on it. It's pure rubish, and they have no one to blame for themselves.

If they can't figure out the audience on a system... why don't they promote products or get out there and see what people actually want to play? It's called research, and I think they forgot how to do so. Just because the Wii has opened the doors, doesn't mean you can release anything on it and expect it to sell.

danger_ranger95

Thats the funniest part of the whole thing, the audience hasn't changed, there is no huge divide or new type of person to cater to out there. The video game industry an be described in one word, mainstream. That covers the entire industry and it has been that way for years. A long time ago gaming was this niche thing between Sega, Nintendo and a bunch of pretenders. Then the right around the time when Sony came in, it made to move to becoming mainstream entertainment.

Its comparable to the movie industry, how often do you see the arthouse flick take on your summer blockbuster in the box office? The big names, the big budgets, the big properties typically always win the day. Of course among the mainstream audience people have a preference, you have people who want to see Iron Man and Wolverine etc and others who want to see the latest Jackie Chan comedy, Sex in the City etc. Now the movie industry doesn't say "oh the latter crowd, since they don't go see 3 superhero movies a year, thier morons and will go see any crap we put out" because they wont. Thier not idiots, thier no different from the Iron Man crowd, they just like any individual has thier own particular taste. They aren't two different audiences, they are just the same, the react to the same thing, big names, big budgets, big properties, just with a different name on the package. Just because there is an audience that wants to see the latest Beyonce movie, it doesn't mean Micheal Bay should stop explodathons for the audience that wants to see those, or make some half hearted attempt at a half and half.

Its the same way in the game industry, there isn't some huge divide in the audience where one half is a bunch of people who don't know a good game from Superman 64, or only want to play mini games or easy games etc. There isn't some huge uncharted audience of gamers out there, there are just more people in the ever growing mainstream audience. They keep trying to go after an audience or cater to an audience that does not exist. Like the movie industry, just because they don't play RE4 doesn't mean they wont respond to the same basic stimulus that gets people who are interested in the game excited. People who aren't interested in Bay's explodathon wont become interested if you remove 2 explosions and a hot girl, people wont become interested in RE if you put it on rails. All that will happen is the people who wanted to see that hot girl and those explosions will lose interest in it. Its as simple as that. There's nothing to figure out, what the plan was 6 years ago before the world "casual" crept into the industry's language should still be the plan.

Zack and Wiki is probably still one of the best 3rd part efforts on wii despite it being a little over 2 years old. It is a shame that this did not sell well. Yes, they should have advertised more, itmight have done some good. What is worse is that this game was sold at $10 less than any other game and it still didn't do any better. Not to bring in other systems but well get a chance to see how another game that is sort of similar do. Heavy Rain is almost out on the PS3. That is not really the same, it does seem to feel like a point a click game only without pointing or clicking. Capcom should watch how this game does before makingany kind of judgmentsabout systems and their audience's.

I suspect that Darkside Chronicles sold poorly simply because most people have had their fill of rail shooters (same for Dead Space Extraction). After two House of The Dead releases and Ghost Squad (there may be more I don't know about), who really wanted another one? The wii is a good system for such games, but only so many are needed.

Zack and wiki was a good enough game to deserve great sales. But it's not exactly tailored to a western audience. If it had a better title and was less super colorful it would had done better.

Get better voice acting (wiki drove me nuts), make it a little less Japanese, change the title and box art, fix a couple issues, put it out during the holidays and advertise it.

It's not hard to see why it failed. A budget game no one's ever heard of with a box that blends in perfectly with all the cheap wii trash no one wants. It's like Capcom went out of their way to make sure no one knew it was a good game.

Developers are too concerned about visuals this gen, and not enough about making a good game. They're wrapped up in the idea that the PS3 and 360 are the only platforms capable of running their games. You would think that they would have realized, simply by sales of the wii, that people just want to play games that offer a good time. We also want the same types of games that other consoles have! I would love to play Batman Arkham Asylum, Elder Scrolls, Uncharted, Bayonetta, section 8, Dragon Age, etc on the Wii. If you're going to bother to do a PS3 and 360 port, make one for the Wii as well. I understand that the Wii is not as powerful, and that the game will be a bit different, but do your best at it and make one anyway. I will buy it! I remember how many great games there were for the PS2, and that is weaker than the Wii. I also remember how good those games STILL look.

farrell2k

There are more to some games then Graphics. The games you mentioned can't run on wii because of their scale somewhat as well. You can't just dumb down graphics and say here's the same thing only the graphics have been modified. Some games, yes all they do is basically upgrade graphics and call it a day, but if it's good, it will do more than that. I am not saying the Wii shouldn't get games, but it isn't because everyone is all about graphics. Graphics can sometimes help a game set the mood and atmosphere.

Let's take Gran Turimo for instance. Part the appeal to that series is how real everything looks. Since it is a racer simulator, they need high end stuff to really make it happen. Granted GT would not come to Nintendo anyway because of the studio being under Sony. The Wii can only hold so many players online as well. So games that would be good with 32 playes cannot happen on Wii. There are some instances in games where you have to process a lot of things on screen at a time and the the weaker hardware can't do it. AI and patterns of behavior of enemies also plays into the power of the system. It's not all graphics. Nintendo made a choice and while it worked for them, third parties were weary.

I don't want to sound like an ass, but does anyone here actually believe games like Zack and Wiki have a chance at being blockbusters on any platform? The type of "core" games being made on Wii are almost exclusively niche and/or spin-off titles which wouldn't sell very well anywhere. It's funny that people think that games like No More Heroes or MadWorld would've performed better on 360 or PS3. They wouldn't have. Sales of similar niche titles on those platforms like Brutal Legend prove this, and I'm sure Bayonetta will suffer a similar fate. These games are not mainstream. They certainly have their place but they're not what most people want. There's a reason why Nintendo's big games are the only ones selling on Wii, Nintendo is the only one bringing their flagship titles to the console. Their idea of support isn't a Metroid on-rails shooter, it's Metroid Prime 3 and Metroid: Other M. Capcom are a company that should understand this but for some reason don't. The reason why Resident Evil 4 and Monster Hunter Tri sold over a million on Wii already is because those are big flagship titles that people actually want. Instead of learning from those successes they look at sales of stuff like MadWorld, Darkside Chronicles and Dead Space Extraction and claim that there is no hardcore market on Wii. If there are no "hardcore" on Wii, who bought 8 million copies of Brawl and Galaxy, 4.5 million copies of Zelda, and over a million copies each of Metroid Prime 3, Resident Evil 4, Monster Hunter Tri, and Call of Duty: World at War? Was it the fabled "soccer mom" or the elusive "gaming grandma" demographic?

I'm not surprised. I mean it's a great game, but it was never really promoted. Most wii owners proabably don't even know it exists.

It's a shame, too. It's a lot of fun.

I bought Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure a while ago but haven't played it due to an extensive backlog. I have only heard good things about the game, though. It's a pity the game hasn't sold much, but has Capcom done sufficient marketing?

We also want the same types of games that other consoles have! I would love to play Batman Arkham Asylum, Elder Scrolls, Uncharted, Bayonetta, section 8, Dragon Age, etc on the Wii. If you're going to bother to do a PS3 and 360 port, make one for the Wii as well. I understand that the Wii is not as powerful, and that the game will be a bit different, but do your best at it and make one anyway. I will buy it!

I remember how many great games there were for the PS2, and that is weaker than the Wii. I also remember how good those games STILL look.farrell2k

Ports. No thanks. Unless they are actually added to by the wiimote rather than just replacing a button press with waggle, I'll have to pass.

You have to keep in mind that last gen the PS2 was the standard for almost all the devs in the industry. Every multiplat game was designed for the PS2 and then ported to the xbox and gamecube. Current gen is a lot different, with the 360 more likely to be the standard for Western devs and the PS3 more likely for Eastern ones. The Wii just doesn't fit into it.

As for as the OP goes, well yeah. What did Capcom expect? Who presented Z&W to the big guys over at Capcom and said to them "Million seller!"? Because I'm sure that guy is fired.

Ports. No thanks. Unless they are actually added to by the wiimote rather than just replacing a button press with waggle, I'll have to pass.

You have to keep in mind that last gen the PS2 was the standard for almost all the devs in the industry. Every multiplat game was designed for the PS2 and then ported to the xbox and gamecube. Current gen is a lot different, with the 360 more likely to be the standard for Western devs and the PS3 more likely for Eastern ones. The Wii just doesn't fit into it.

As for as the OP goes, well yeah. What did Capcom expect? Who presented Z&W to the big guys over at Capcom and said to them "Million seller!"? Because I'm sure that guy is fired.

I suppose Europeans didn't buy Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure since there is still loads in stock according to GamesTracker.com. The same website can't find any for North America, though, oh noes!

Marketting, friends! You can make James Cameron fx movie or an MGS game or even Zelda, but without enough ads your going to go.. where??? (insert opinion here).

Zack & Wiki may be a good game but lets be realistic, the point and click adventure isn't exactly big business these days. If anyone at Capcom thought Zack & Wiki would be a big success, they are in the wrong business. T.Sepewrath

126k doesn't sound too bad for a niche puzzle game with absolutely zero advertising behind it. What the hell are Capcom's expectations? It's a brand new IP so people won't know anything about the game unless they are browsing gaming forums. If you have a good game and are getting praised by reviewers, it's your fault for not advertising how good your game actually is.

There is so much crap out for the Wii, that you can't just throw out a new IP on the shelves and expect it to sell without any advertising, sorry. You need to make your product stand out.

The Wii audience isn't hard to figure out:

-They love Nintendo games

-They love games that do nifty things, as long as its advertised (Wii Fit, and hopefully swordfighting in RS2 if it gets advertised)

-They love party games

-They love ESTABLISHED FRANCHISES just like PS3 and 360 owners do (Call of Duty, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Soul Calibur, Final Fantasy, etc etc). When those franchises try to do 'innovative' things (as RE, Soul Calibur, Dead Space and Final Fantasy have tried), they are usually going to be met with poor sales. When they don't try to do anything fancy (RE4, Call of Duty, Monster Hunter Tri), the sales turn out good. It's not rocket science. The majority of people don't want a hack and slash Soul Calibur, or an on rails Dead Space, or an action adventure Final Fantasy.

-They love ESTABLISHED FRANCHISES just like PS3 and 360 owners do (Call of Duty, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Soul Calibur, Final Fantasy, etc etc). When those franchises try to do 'innovative' things (as RE, Soul Calibur, Dead Space and Final Fantasy have tried), they are usually going to be met with poor sales. When they don't try to do anything fancy (RE4, Call of Duty, Monster Hunter Tri), the sales turn out good. It's not rocket science. The majority of people don't want a hack and slash Soul Calibur, or an on rails Dead Space, or an action adventure Final Fantasy.

Blue-N-Yellow

Exactly! Wii owners want the same thing too!

It just seems like Developers are using the Wii as a "Guinea pig" and not using it as a "system".

It's so they don't have to build a game from the ground up for Wii. Capcom likes to multiplatform. If they can make a game run on PS3, 360 and PC, rather than just on Wii then they will do it. Other developers are follwing suit. At the beginning of this generation The 360 had quite a good amount of exclusives like Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Eternal Sonata, Star Ocean, Just Cause (Console Realm) Call of Juarez (console realm), I think I heard somewhere that Ninja Gaiden 2 would never come to PS3 but look what happened. Just like everyone thought Tekken, Final Fantasy main series and Devil May Cry would always belong to Sony but look what happened. The 360 has lost a lot of it's console realm exclusives except for PC developers. I am pretty sure FF13 will go to PC sometime as well. When you can make one engine and put it on 3 different systems, that sounds a lot a better than making an engine for one system only. Yeah sure they could do the PS2 PSP thing, but those systems are pretty much out the door.

Why develop a top notch game for wii, when you can sell average level stuff to help fund for the main projects on other systems? Yes Wii only owners are getting shafted like no one's business. Everybody at the beginning when Sony was losing exclusivity that since the Wii is selling so well that all the games would end up on that platform.

Granted games have always been about making money, but now that is more the case then ever before.

What has Nintendo even had besides the "wii" and Mario titles appealed to the core.

in 2008 there was

Wii Fit

Smash Bros

Mario Kart

No More Heroes

Call of Duty World at War

Deblob to a certain extent

3 of those games are third party and 3 of those are first party

2009 there was

Punch Out

Mario Bros

Muramasa the Demon Blade

Wii Sports Resort

Wii Fit Plus

Call of Duty 4

Dead Space extraction

Metroid Prime Trilogy

If you look at 08 and 09, Nintendo kind of put out the same stuff this past year as they did last year with the exception of Punch Out. Metroid Prime Trilogy while cool isn't anything new for the most part.

3rd parties did rail shooters and a watered down port of a 2 year old game that had a sequel on the other systems.

Let's look at other core games for Wii

Okami, Godfather, Guilty Gear XX, Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Resident Evil 4, Mario Tennis, Pikmin, Manhunt 2, Bully.etc. Most of those games came out on PS2 a few years before the Wii. Even Nintendo's flagship launch game wasn't even an exclusive for the system. A lot of the core games out there are games that the avid gamer has seen before and can play on a last generation system. The Wiimakes really don't help squash the idea that the Wii is just a GC with a different controller.

Even Metroid Prime 3 performed lower than expectations. Now Nintendo is cancelling the production of the trilogy collection?

Even developers that have made a solid effort don't sell. No More Heroes took forever to reach acceptable sales. I don't know how they managed a second one. You now have the first one coming to the other systems. Muramasa did not sell well either and from what I heard, it's pretty good. Deadly Creatures while short was also a solid effort.Little KingsStory was probably the best effort for 3rd parties last year and that did poorly as well as the silent hill game.

True, 3rd parties haveput out a lot of crap, but when the good stuff finally does come out, the mass market is nowhere to be found. So why develop for Wii when the other systems are so much more successful?

Granted 2010 looks great with Monster Hunter, Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid other M, Tales of Graces, Sin and Punishment 2 and whatever else.

Zack and Wiki could've used some more advertising. Capcom should just make a proper Resident Evil and see how well that sells on Wii.Kenny789

It basically seems that you have to be easy to play. Most won't played games like Zack and Wiki because they take alot of thinking. I thought the game was okay but not fantastic.

Poor sales has little to do with demographics and more to do with no advertising. Zak and Wiki for example, looks like many other rubbish third party efforts on the Wii shelf. Its a great game, butdevelopers have to tell people about it. Thats the big thing the 360 and PS3 do well, is market their games with ace adverts that make you want to buy the games. What does the Wii get? Ant and Dec trumpeting casual game experiences for the whole family again. They do nothing for the image of the console amongst hardcore gamers, and they simply draw attention to titles most people are already aware of.

Annoyingly, we have good games. Silent Hill, Tatsunoku vs Capcom, Muramasa and more on their way Metroid, Red Steel 2, Sin and Punishent 2 and No more heroes 2. These games would be part of a perfect "Wii is for everyone" advertising campaign. Instead I can see very little changing. Nintendo have made good on their promise, to bring more games to the Wii for their core fans, unfortunately, unless you own a Wii and use sites like this, you wont know about it.

Thats a shame... :( I wonder if we will ever see a sequel to Zack and Wiki...

It basically seems that you have to be easy to play. Most won't played games like Zack and Wiki because they take alot of thinking. I thought the game was okay but not fantastic.

chocolate1325

I'm not surprised. I mean it's a great game, but it was never really promoted. Most wii owners proabably don't even know it exists.

It's a shame, too. It's a lot of fun.

BuryMe

Well, they gave us Res 4, Umbrella and Darkside Chronicles. We had the port of Dead Rising. So what else could they give us? Dead Rising shows exactly why we shouldn't want any dumbed down games from the 360 or PS3. So the best we can hope for is that they do their revamp of Res 2, like they did with Res 1 on the Gamecube.Evil_Robo

I also didn't buy Zack & Wiki, I wasn't looking on game sites at the time it came out and I just thought it was bad.

I hope Tatsunoko vs Capcom and Monster Hunter 3 will sell good:P