Just.... smurf you Capcom.

[NeoCracker]

Capcom Reveals Life-to-Date Series, Game Sales | News | Edge Online

BoF: 200K/Game
Ace Attorney: 250K/Game

So, just by looking at the capcom released numbers, BoF is at least somewhat comparable to the Ace Atorney games in terms of sales, and looking at VG Chartz it seems that Dragon Quarter was lagging a lot in sales compared to the other titles in the franchise. Were that to be dropped, sales number's would be remarkably close.

The Idea people weren't buying the games is just plane silly, as that would mean no one was buying Ace Attorney either.

In addition, I recall a lot of publishers having said that they hadn't normally kept track of online sales for one reason or another, so it would be interesting to know of the numbers I linked include the Wii Virtual console downloads in the BoF numbers.

[Madame Adequate]

smurf everything forever.

[NeoCracker]

Also, since I forgot to link anyting on the numbers of individual games...

Game Database, Best Selling Video Games, Game Sales, Million Sellers, Top Selling - VGChartz

BoF III sold about 1 Million, and IV .56 Million.

It is very possible IV was dissapointing sales wise considering the numbers sold by III, so that game might have been considered a failure, but no way did they turn it out because 'no one was buying the games'. BoF III far outsold the .36 Million of BoF II on the SNES (Though that is only showing Japans sales numbers on the BoF II admittedly.)

Comparing the total numbers on VG Charts to the Capcom sales, it's actually about .5 million shorter on VG chartz which doesn't have numbers for every title, but that's kind of asside from the point.

So yeah, 'no one was buying them' is kind of bulltrout.

[Skyblade]

To Capcom, though, that's a failure.

There's a reason we still haven't gotten Professor Layton Versus Ace Attorney, and it's because Capcom America doesn't think the demand for the Ace Attorney games is high enough.

[Spuuky]

People thought it was "bad" because it was different.

That is the most hipster douche bag thing you have ever said. XD

Anyway, copy and pasted from a guide, this is pretty much the biggest problem with the game.

This time around, there is only one dragon form for Ryu to assume, much to
the dissapointment of many fans. The form, Wyrm, however is incredibly
powerful, albeit incredibly limited. As a form of control, to make sure the
system isn't abused, Ryu has a D-Counter, which rises every time he uses his
dragon abilities (either transforming in battle or using his D-Dash ability
while walking around areas). This can be quite annoying since it goes up
quickly if you're not careful and has no way to be lowered at all, short of
beating the game or using the SOL system. Let me repeat that, *THERE IS NO
WAY TO LOWER YOUR D-COUNTER.* Once your D-Counter reaches 100%, you die.
You have to either use the SOL system or give up completely. Because of
this, you have to ration out how and when you use the dragon power as much
as you can throughout the game, so that you can have enough to finish the
game in one piece.

So you think the feature of the game that drives its beautiful design is a BAD thing? Using SoL is the entire point of the game.

[NeoCracker]

Well Capcom of America is wrong.


It's like with Tomb Raider really, even though the numbers on that game were great, it was still a failure for the company because of these stupidly unrealistic expectations.

BoF's numbers were good. Not greatest hit's good, but they were good.

Edit: @Spooky: Yeah, being the entire point of the game doesn't magically make it better.

You can only reduce your COunter by essentially restarting the damn game. Keeping limits on your overpowered abilities is one thing, but forcing you to restart the game? That's seriously pushing it.

And what if you are one of those people who like to explore every nook and cranny, and like to back track a lot? Or like to grind a lot? Well all of those things cause your D-Counter to raise. So even if you aren't over-using your Dragon Form, you may end up running your D-Counter to high.

It's an inherently flaws system used to pad out a game whose story really isn't all that long anyway.

In addition, while reducing it to just one dragon form isn't inherently bad just because all the other games had multiple, but when the game is actively discouraging you from using it? And the form is in and of itself so powerful nothing in the game really has a chance against you when you are in it? The game took away all the joy out of playing around with the different forms of dragons, and didn't even leave any joy in the one form it does give you.

Essentially the game leaves you with a couple options. You can A) Play through with absolute minimal use of your dragon form, which leaves you with a very short game, or B) Replay the same trout multiple times due to restarting with the SOL system.

So the set up makes the game either entirely to short, or entirely to repetitive.

[Polnareff]

Ace Attorney is different, it's a text based game built on a small budget. 250K for that game is pretty goddamn awesome. That means they'll more than make back the budget. Which means, yes, the games are doing pretty well. Or were, since apparently AAI didn't sell enough to warrant AAI2 coming out here. Apollo Justice was the real start of AA's sales dropping off.

Breath of Fire selling 250K is a different story. For RPGs to do well, they have to do at least 500K in this economy or it'll be a flop. BoF1 was the only one that really did over 500K. I doubt it really sold a million, because it was an underdog compared to FF; any RPG that wasn't FF pretty got their asses kicked in sales back then. But another thing is, you linked to VGChartz, which in gaming circles is known as a laughingstock because their numbers for lesser-known games are never accurate. IIRC, Capcom themselves said that BoF sold 3 million units collectively. This is spread across 15, count 'em, FIFTEEN titles. That is 200 thousand exactly for each one.

Assuming BoF1 DID sell that much (I still doubt it), this means that it should be 2 million divided by 14, which is around 143K. Keep in mind this is 143K a game, assuming they sold evenly. This isn't that great by RPG standards, since RPGs have huge groups working on them, and they normally take longer to complete. Time=money. Before I forget, the 15 number counts the ports as well, which, if you think about it, drives the number even lower. Add to that that a few of these are cellphone games, and the numbers for the main series become even more dismal. Cellphone gaming, believe it or not, is a big market in Japan. That's why Squenix and Capcom and whoever else is latching onto it.

Ace Attorney doesn't compare because a bulk of the work goes to writing and planning the story. As you may have known already, the AA games reused a lot of resources from game to game. Even some of the later new characters were redrawn from older sprites. The Street Fighter and Mega Man series, among others, did the same thing. BoF was unique in that it didn't really reuse much in the way of sprites. Every BoF game has a wealth of new resources. But as time went on and the sales went down, the budget kind of overtook what they were making back. But at the same time, they were cutting corners by the time IV came out to offload the rising costs of development.

This is why when you play IV, Ryu and Fou-Lu's transformations are relegated to 3D cutscenes, and why they basically just look like overgrown bats on the battle screen, instead of dragons. There's no true world map, and the game is EXTREMELY linear and not very flashy at all like the previous ones. The desert motif gave Capcom an excuse to make the game kind of empty compared to the others. And I would also say that DQ took no huge effort for Capcom to make, honestly. I like the game but it smacks of a short development time. Apparently from what I've heard, the game started development in mid-2001, so that means it didn't even get 2 years of development. It originally came out in 2/2003. Add to that that MMX Command Mission had started development as well, so the BoF team was focusing on 2 games at once. Since MMX was more popular than BoF at the time, well, you can see what happened.

This sorta relates, but I got to the point where I beat DQ in one sitting about 2 years ago, and was shocked at how short it was. Think my final time was around 8 hours, 25 minutes. That is SHORT. That's even shorter than Parasite Eve. That's when I knew the series was dead.

[NeoCracker]

Ace Attorney is different, it's a text based game built on a small budget. 250K for that game is pretty goddamn awesome. That means they'll more than make back the budget. Which means, yes, the games are doing pretty well. Or were, since apparently AAI didn't sell enough to warrant AAI2 coming out here. Apollo Justice was the real start of AA's sales dropping off.[/Spoiler]

AAI may not have sold well enough to warrent it coming out, but the first one did well enough to warrent 2 and 3 coming out. Not really sure what your point in bringing up the spin off likely not doing so well means.

[/Spoiler]Breath of Fire selling 250K is a different story. For RPGs to do well, they have to do at least 500K in this economy or it'll be a flop. BoF1 was the only one that really did over 500K. I doubt it really sold a million, because it was an underdog compared to FF; any RPG that wasn't FF pretty got their asses kicked in sales back then.[/Spoiler]Breath of Fire 3 was teh one listed at 1 million, not 1. But another thing is, you linked to VGChartz, which in gaming circles is known as a laughingstock because their numbers for lesser-known games are never accurate. IIRC, Capcom themselves said that BoF sold 3 million units collectively. This is spread across 15, count 'em, FIFTEEN titles. That is 200 thousand exactly for each one.[/Spoiler]

Firstly, the VG numbers match up pretty closely with the Capcom numbers, so I figured it was a safe bet to use them.

Also, 15 games includes the re-releases and ports. There have been only five original titles. That leaves for 9 ports and remakes.

In addition, from the wiki article on BoF III....

Breath of Fire III was met with a mostly positive response in Japan, with Famitsu Weekly awarding it 28 out of 40 possible points,[27] while Dengeki PlayStation Magazine awarded it a 79% average.[34] The game would go on to sell 425,000 copies in the region in 1997, making it the 24th most-bought game that year,[35] as well as qualifying it for Sony's "PlayStation the Best" distinction, which allowed it to be re-released in December 2000 at a reduced price.[2]

Sold half a million just in Japan. The world wide release could easily see it hitting one million.

Assuming BoF1 DID sell that much (I still doubt it), this means that it should be 2 million divided by 14, which is around 143K. Keep in mind this is 143K a game, assuming they sold evenly. This isn't that great by RPG standards, since RPGs have huge groups working on them, and they normally take longer to complete. p/Quote]

BoF 2, Japanese SNES release again according to the Wiki article on it in relation to Japanese only sales....

and it would go on to sell a total of 350,000 copies in the region by the end of 1995.

BoF IV in Japan...

334,000

So yeah, the lower average pretty much comes from the constant remakes and ports not selling as well, the main entries seemed to be doing just fine. Remeber, all those numbers are only Japanese sales, not world wide.

And lining that up with your comments on BoF IV cutting corners to keep budget down, I don't see how they couldn't have made a profit with those sales.

And final note on the PC version of BoF IV...

while the Japanese version sold enough copies to qualify for the "Quality1980" label, and was subsequently re-released on July 8, 2005.[

Now I can't find what that label even means, but for game to 'sell well enough for a re-release' sounds to me like the game was doing pretty well. You don't re-release a game if it didn't sell well in the first place.

The Idea that people weren't buying this trout doesn't at all add up with their actions relating to it.

Edit: And the wiki dates show a two year gap between Dragon Quarter and Command Misison releases.

[Jiro]

It is heartbreaking to see the series end up this way. I almost would have preferred they didn't make it.

[Polnareff]

AAI may not have sold well enough to warrent it coming out, but the first one did well enough to warrent 2 and 3 coming out. Not really sure what your point in bringing up the spin off likely not doing so well means.

It means that Capcom poured more of a budget into AAI (it having totally new resources compared to the older games) and it sold like poop here by those standards. It apparently did okay enough in Japan to warrant an AAI2. But that doesn't matter so much, and I'll mention why later in the post. The reason why I brought that up was because AA was brought up as having sold well. It did, but the budget was kinda low, you have to admit. They started out as GBA games, after all. The games could have sold like 50K copies and still did okay. Like I said before, the story was the bulk of the work.

The other point I was trying to make, and failed to, was that if a full fledged BoF came out and did the same numbers it did before, it would lose money for Capcom. Let's face it, BoF isn't a blockbuster by any means. The only reason the first one sold anything in the US is because it had Square's name on it from when Woolsey translated the game and they published it. In Japan it fared better.

Firstly, the VG numbers match up pretty closely with the Capcom numbers, so I figured it was a safe bet to use them.

Also, 15 games includes the re-releases and ports. There have been only five original titles. That leaves for 9 ports and remakes.

Yes, I mentioned the second part of this in my earlier post. I mean, 3 million between 15 games, only five of which are original, is flipping crazy. If they made the same sales now, it'd be considered a flop since game costs keep ballooning. Just like they did from the transition from the SNES era to the PSX era.

In addition, from the wiki article on BoF III....

Breath of Fire III was met with a mostly positive response in Japan, with Famitsu Weekly awarding it 28 out of 40 possible points,[27] while Dengeki PlayStation Magazine awarded it a 79% average.[34] The game would go on to sell 425,000 copies in the region in 1997, making it the 24th most-bought game that year,[35] as well as qualifying it for Sony's "PlayStation the Best" distinction, which allowed it to be re-released in December 2000 at a reduced price.[2]

But......the English version of the game pretty much seemed to kill a lot of the money the JP version would have made. One really big thing is that Capcom didn't make too many copies of the game anyway, so right off the bat it was a fairly hard game to find.

There's also the licenses they had to clear, as well as hiring Bowne to help them translate the game, after the in-house disaster that was BoF2's translation.

A telling thing later was that when the PSP version came out, somebody (Sven?) talked about how on the Capcom forums that getting permission from Bowne at the time to let Capcom re-release the game for Europe was a huge pain in the ass. I thought this was interesting, since they also helped translate Phoenix Wright (for proof, beat the game and look at the credits) not long after. Bowne was going through a name change at the time this happened. I think they're called.....Lionsbridge or something now. BoFIII for PSP didn't get cleared for the US though because of Sony. And ANOTHER thing is that a couple years ago, Capcom wanted to put III on PSN; they couldn't get Lionsbridge or whatever it's called now to let them use their translation. This was also discussed on Capcom-Unity. So that's the reason why IV is up there, but not III. I think III is on the JP PSN though.

[/Quote]Assuming BoF1 DID sell that much (I still doubt it), this means that it should be 2 million divided by 14, which is around 143K. Keep in mind this is 143K a game, assuming they sold evenly. This isn't that great by RPG standards, since RPGs have huge groups working on them, and they normally take longer to complete. p/Quote]

BoF 2, Japanese SNES release again according to the Wiki article on it in relation to Japanese only sales....

and it would go on to sell a total of 350,000 copies in the region by the end of 1995.

BoF IV in Japan...

334,000

So yeah, the lower average pretty much comes from the constant remakes and ports not selling as well, the main entries seemed to be doing just fine. Remeber, all those numbers are only Japanese sales, not world wide.

And lining that up with your comments on BoF IV cutting corners to keep budget down, I don't see how they couldn't have made a profit with those sales.

And final note on the PC version of BoF IV...

while the Japanese version sold enough copies to qualify for the "Quality1980" label, and was subsequently re-released on July 8, 2005.[

Now I can't find what that label even means, but for game to 'sell well enough for a re-release' sounds to me like the game was doing pretty well.

Any game like that can sell well enough for a re-release but not a full-fledged sequel. I have to wonder how many it has to sell to qualify for this label, but if it's more than I'm thinking, then that just helps my argument even more.

You don't re-release a game if it didn't sell well in the first place.

The Idea that people weren't buying this trout doesn't at all add up with their actions relating to it.

I beg to differ. Back when Capcom was a more unwise company, they would re-release games and make sequels to them even if they didn't do well, just to see if they could get some of them to finally stick. The best example I can think of is Darkstalkers, which to most people at the time it came out, was the bastard child of SF. But it was kept going as a pet project and labor of love. This labor of love never truly took off though, despite having a lot of games to its name. Even the recent re-release flopped, after people requested for it to be re-released again with online play. Star Gladiator and Rival Schools, especially Rival Schools, were victims of this as well.

Behavior like this has almost caused them to become bankrupt at least twice. Once right before Resident Evil came out and saved their asses (oddly enough, they faced bankruptcy from squandering most of their funds on making excess SNES carts.....I trout you not), and another time in 2003, at the same time their real-estate venture failed (yes, Capcom had a real-estate branch at one point). That led to most of the Capcom 5 being cancelled.

Edit: And the wiki dates show a two year gap between Dragon Quarter and Command Misison releases.

Yes, but DQ's development did indeed spill over into Command Mission. Command Mission, for whatever stupid reason, had a longer total development time than DQ. Apparently it started when Cap was about 70% done with DQ. The same team made both. There was a thread talking about it on my old home forum, SNK-Capcom.com, before the entire forum got wiped the hell out and replaced with a new one. For the record, it is only a one and a half year gap.

[NeoCracker]

This conversation seems to have boiled down to this.

Me: It got a lot of sales even on just a PC port and got a good PC gaming lable over there!
You: It sold well? Clearly that just proves my point of no one buying it!
Me: ...

I don't even know how to talk you you anymore man.

[black orb]

>>> Capcom being Capcom..

[DMKA]

Expect to see this happen more and more. It's even happening to series like Deus Ex and Halo now.

Mobile touch games are the future. They're just too profitable.

[Spuuky]

Are they actually too profitable, or are they simply perceived to be too profitable? Because one means the trend will continue, and the other does not.

Also, you say "Halo" as if that's somehow a more revered series than Breath of Fire.

[DMKA]

Also, you say "Halo" as if that's somehow a more revered series than Breath of Fire.

It is.