Their one option is rebranding and relaunching SFV with a physical "Super" release with strong single player options. But I think that would require a considerable, additional investment. I'm not sure I buy the rumors that it's happening. If it does, it shows Capcom is willing to put themselves on the line to promote Street Fighter. Sadly I don't know how much that would actually sell. I'm not convinced it's a lack of arcade mode that didn't make SFV a big success. It's not like a large number of units were ordered by retail stores before the controversies arose. Capcom failed their sales target outright straight from the gate. I think that after years of multiple SF4 releases interest in the franchise dried up, just like with SF2.
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Capcom's difficult position
- Thread starter CrimsonCrescendo
- Start date
Their one option is rebranding and relaunching SFV with a physical "Super" release with strong single player options. But I think that would require a considerable, additional investment. I'm not sure I buy the rumors that it's happening. If it does, it shows Capcom is willing to put themselves on the line to promote Street Fighter. Sadly I don't know how much that would actually sell. I'm not convinced it's a lack of arcade mode that didn't make SFV a big success. It's not like a large number of units were ordered by retail stores before the controversies arose. Capcom failed their sales target outright straight from the gate. I think that after years of multiple SF4 releases interest in the franchise dried up, just like with SF2.
TheDinoman
Member
Darkstalkers is one of those weird franchises where the characters are bigger than the games themselves.
Like, DS has never really been a popular franchise outside of maybe Japan, and yet Morrigan and Felicia and what not are always headlining characters in crossover games like the VS. Series and Project X Zone. Hell, Jedah is even one of the very few newcomers in MVC Infinite. I always see people requesting for every obscure Darkstalkers character to be included in those games, lol.
Like, DS has never really been a popular franchise outside of maybe Japan, and yet Morrigan and Felicia and what not are always headlining characters in crossover games like the VS. Series and Project X Zone. Hell, Jedah is even one of the very few newcomers in MVC Infinite. I always see people requesting for every obscure Darkstalkers character to be included in those games, lol.
Oh. Corporate pandering is the way I saw it.
I'm just bitter. Maybe don't show a trailer like that until after you've released the compilation (and actually advertise it, so it makes money). Then release a teaser trailer like that.
I wouldn't exactly say that honestly. I fully believe Tokido prefers SFV over other SF games. That isn't a shocking thing at all, especially when you look at the history of SF(and his personal history with it). That doesn't take away criticisms he and others have also made. It's a more complex thing. The only thing kinda surprising is his continued enthusiasm lately, it is still exceptional these days which is against the common opinion.
I do think the blatant promotional-ness of the gif is p godlike though lol
Honestly at this point all a Super version would do is allow shitposters to shitpost "lol Crapcom at it again with their rehash release herp derP" with the same casual audience probably not buying in because of what the Super prefix often means. Also expect planty of "I'll wait until Ultra" posts. Capcom made their bed with SFV. Sans balancing issues and other fuckery, I think what they are currently doing with SFV is what they should keep doing...supporting w/ new characters/ costumes/ stages until its enough or time for SFVI...while hopefully actually learning from this for once (they won't tho...).
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
There isn't gonna be a SP drought.
I witnessed this with my students this past week when introducing them to a bunch of older fighters. They kept shrugging off whenever I asked if they wanted to see Darkstalkers. Then, when loading up SamSho 2, a couple of them confused Cham with Felicia and asked if SamSho was where she came from. Then I booted up Vampire Savior and they were like "oh, wow, Felicia, Morrigan, Hsien-Ko, and John Talbain (I'm just as confused as you are) are all from the same game!"
Hilariously, the fighter they were the most excited about wanting to keep playing was Third Strike.
Capcom is a family business (the top positions are old man Tsujimoto and his sons and grandsons) so it's unlikely anyone on that front would ever get fired.
NintendosBooger
Member
Nepotism at its finest. Very healthy in a corporation, I hear.
I think you are overestimating how many people who "represent the FGC" (in these topics) share that logic. I was pushing it from the beta days, Capcom needs to appeal to casuals, put in more SP content, don't worry about lack of 1F links and extend-a-combos from jabs, what's important is growing the base... but the truth is there have been tons of "fuck you, got mine" posts here regarding SFV. In fact, that often comes across as the general sentiment. You don't like it? You have no right to complain, look at that other fighting game's problems! That poster wants arcade mode? I bet they wouldn't even buy it!
When people are seriously suggesting the last-minute, sorry excuse for a survival mode that they had the intern slap together qualifies as any sort of worthwhile single player experience (or anything less than frustrating), it shows a toxic, either condescending or head in the sand attitude that quite honestly isn't being helped by Capcom's addressing/lack of addressing of key issues since launch. The saving grace is that the FGC in general--offline--has improved a lot. You don't hear dumbass statements like "if you want arcade mode, VS CPU has been in for months!" offline. I loath SF4, hate-played it for literally close to 1,000 hours, but I knew that it didn't just bring people in because of nostalgia -- it brought in a lot of new players, in part because it offered a lot of content. Then Capcom said "with SFV, we want to bring in a lot of new players" or something like that, then they release the most anti consumer fighting game they've put out in some time. Can't make it up.
SF4 was a different game, that's apples to oranges. I'm talking about SFV specifically.
Good kids, fighting for the future.
crimzonflame
Member
This is kinda true. A few of my casual friends were really pissed off when they announced super street fighter 4 and gave up when they announced ultimate mvc3.
I wonder how seriously they've considered making the base game free to play. Seems like they have enough hooks in place for people to pay them money for characters, costumes, stages, etc. I'm not sure how they can do this in a way that doesn't feel shitty for people that already bought the game though. Giving lots of fight money seems like the only option.
And Tales is in such a huge decline it may never recover now. Again, not the wisest strategy.
DryEyeRelief
Member
I believe it as much as when he said playing Elena in USF4 would have made him a worse player.
Is it really? Tokido is the player that went in, fully dedicated to vanilla SFxT
Who do you think might want to buy them? I'm not asking to be a smart ass. Who would have the cash and want those IPs?
MARVEL/Disney (doubt it)?
Square-Enix? Sony? Activision?
The Chinese company that bought SNK? This might actually be amazing because you could merge the IPs sort of. We'd at least get another SNK vs. Capcom 2 or Capcom vs. SNK 3.
Callibretto
Member
Fight money is really useless to me because I buy season passes for characters, and the only dlc Im interested in are premium costume that you cant get with fight money.
I would hope if someone did buy Capcom, it would be someone who could put games on all platforms. Otherwise, kiss stuff like Megaman and Ryu in Smash goodbye.
MAtgS
Member
Unless it was Nintendo themselves who did the buying.
Allforce
Member
Without ever knowing the true development costs of titles we can never really know if a game is a "failure" by any metric other than the publisher stating they were "disappointed" and whatnot. I mean, 1.7m LTD when they EXPECTED the game to sell 2m in one month. Well who knows if their expectations are just absolutely ludicrous and total pipe-dreams but the reality is even a "bomb" in the community's eyes like SFV still makes a tremendous amount of money for them. We can't ever really know until we know what it costs them to make these games and it's a subject that's never really brought up or explored by the press.
Who's to say SFV didn't cost 15 million to develop and market and they've recouped that money x4 (assuming every 1.7 million copies sold sold for 59.99, which they obviously didn't). Add to that all the 30 dollar Season Passes and dozens of other paid DLC and while it's a bomb in our eyes they're still making a fortune. Or it cost 100m to make and they're still in the red and bleeding money daily.
All we ever hear as fans is "GAME DEVELOPMENT IS COSTING MORE THAN EVER" but what is a solid average cost for a AAA title nowadays? Gears of War 1 came out a decade ago and Epic were flat out honest and said it cost 20m to make, on the record. Is SFV a 100m dollar game to develop then today? Is any game that high? Does Destiny 2 cost 250m to make and market like a blockbuster movie does nowadays? We only get half the story in sales numbers and assume that anything not 5m+ is a complete loss and devastating to the publisher.
Who's to say SFV didn't cost 15 million to develop and market and they've recouped that money x4 (assuming every 1.7 million copies sold sold for 59.99, which they obviously didn't). Add to that all the 30 dollar Season Passes and dozens of other paid DLC and while it's a bomb in our eyes they're still making a fortune. Or it cost 100m to make and they're still in the red and bleeding money daily.
All we ever hear as fans is "GAME DEVELOPMENT IS COSTING MORE THAN EVER" but what is a solid average cost for a AAA title nowadays? Gears of War 1 came out a decade ago and Epic were flat out honest and said it cost 20m to make, on the record. Is SFV a 100m dollar game to develop then today? Is any game that high? Does Destiny 2 cost 250m to make and market like a blockbuster movie does nowadays? We only get half the story in sales numbers and assume that anything not 5m+ is a complete loss and devastating to the publisher.
SixMachine
Member
I think that would be unfortunate even if I like Nintendo games. That would cut off Capcom from doing stuff like VR like they did with RE7 or something of similar graphical fidelity since Nintendo is not known for that (though they have great artistic direction to make up for it). I do think if something like being merged with Namco Bandai would be more likely, since they seem to have working relations while keeping their properties open to be on a variety of platforms.
Capcom just makes stupid decisions (not unlike a lot of other big game publishers)
1. Just make an Ultra Street Fighter V? How hard would that be?
2. Milking the Resident Evil series to death with remasters of 4 and revelations all the freaking time. Stop.
3. Finally putting Dragon's Dogma on PC when it could have been done much earlier.
4. Handing over Dead Rising, DmC to western developers would have alienated fans.
5. Monster Hunter on 3DS? Why make it exclusive?
They should not be in a difficult position at all.
1. Just make an Ultra Street Fighter V? How hard would that be?
2. Milking the Resident Evil series to death with remasters of 4 and revelations all the freaking time. Stop.
3. Finally putting Dragon's Dogma on PC when it could have been done much earlier.
4. Handing over Dead Rising, DmC to western developers would have alienated fans.
5. Monster Hunter on 3DS? Why make it exclusive?
They should not be in a difficult position at all.
JasonUresti
Member
The publisher doesn't make anything close to 60 dollars of a game that retails for 59.99.
Callibretto
Member
I still think overall, SF V made money for Capcom. if the project is a huge flop, it's more likely for publisher to cut off support like Mass Effect Andromeda not having any story dlc. the fact that Capcom keep supporting the game with new characters, costume, stages, holding tourney etc mean that the game is profitable. obviously not as much as they want, but enough to not just drop the game and start fresh with SF VI
It could also be them trying to squeeze what they can out of the playerbase that they've managed to get. Stuff like DLC is much lower cost and much higher margin than the game itself.
It astounds me how Capcom never seems to learn from it's mistakes. I'm a huge fan of their stuff, but their decisions have been baffling me for years; things like not localizing MH entries where there seems to be big demand (Portable 3rd, the PS3 one, MHXX), gems and on disc dlc, basing things like Darkstalkers on the sales of a subpard rerelease, telling fans that they shouldn't care about characters because they're just movesets, they're basically openly hostile with their fanbase. It's crazy.
But that has kept the alive to this point!
dreamcastmaster
Banned
Ultra Street Fighter was enough for me with that series, just dropping in content from SF X T and calling it an update just felt so cheap AND they took away the awesome character select music.
Been back into it since they made it backwards compatible on Xbox 1, I just upgraded it to Arcade Edition and I'll never install that Ultra update. Nice to have so much content and an arcade mode to play.
I brought SFV.
But they could make more money if they put it out in the west on other platforms!
Yet they wanted to keep it on 3DS because they assumed handheld and playing with friends was the only way to play the game.
I believe Capcom lost all their talent right? They left to make Clover studios because they didnt want to make endless sequels. Then Capcom bought Clover and tried to merge it back into Capcom, then all the talent left again.
They seem to have gone the same road as Square Enix. Always make sequels> Lose all their talent> barely make games internally anymore> overall decline.
They seem to have gone the same road as Square Enix. Always make sequels> Lose all their talent> barely make games internally anymore> overall decline.
they still have a lot of old talent.
Son Of Sparda
Member
I don't have a problem with people liking or disliking the game (I don't really like it either), but the whole "Haters vs Defenders - SFV Edition" has gotten really tiring and old. Seeing the same old discussions dominate a general thread about Capcom makes it even more annoying.
lucebuce12
Member
True, especially when we could instead be talking about how they still haven't announced the next entry in the DMC series.
TheGoldenGunman
Member
I'm a former Capcom employee (though not Japan office). Truth is they have been on the slide for years, starting with the loss of Clover studio and Mikami leaving. I certainly felt it during my time there with too much direction being decided by the marketing teams with little results to show for it. Case in point is RE6 effectively being directed to be a Call of Duty style game instead of what made it great (either the old or RE4 newer style). The DMC reboot is another example of a game that was remade based on marketing feedback but which actually sold worse than the previous version (DMC4).
Whilst the Japanese games industry has struggled badly since the PS3 era, Capcom had a unique advantage in that they had IP that resonated well in the West with Resident Evil, Street Fighter and to a lesser extend Dead Rising. But sub-par games and too much experimentation with weaker new titles has left them lagging.
I think it's inevitable they end up being acquired by someone else, most likely Tencent but possibly even someone from the West. Even if they have shown they aren't capable of making a hit game any more, their IP and back catalog is an exciting proposition. If someone like EA or Warner Bros. owned the Street Fighter IP, you can bet they would be selling a lot more than 2 million copies over 2 years. Business is business and Capcom have proved themselves pretty incompetent in this regard.
It's a massive shame because during the 90's to mid 2000's Capcom were easily one of the best game makers on the planet.
Whilst the Japanese games industry has struggled badly since the PS3 era, Capcom had a unique advantage in that they had IP that resonated well in the West with Resident Evil, Street Fighter and to a lesser extend Dead Rising. But sub-par games and too much experimentation with weaker new titles has left them lagging.
I think it's inevitable they end up being acquired by someone else, most likely Tencent but possibly even someone from the West. Even if they have shown they aren't capable of making a hit game any more, their IP and back catalog is an exciting proposition. If someone like EA or Warner Bros. owned the Street Fighter IP, you can bet they would be selling a lot more than 2 million copies over 2 years. Business is business and Capcom have proved themselves pretty incompetent in this regard.
It's a massive shame because during the 90's to mid 2000's Capcom were easily one of the best game makers on the planet.
I'm thinking, really, that it's far likelier that Capcom is going to go the way of Konami before they're going to go back to their groove. The market is way different now and Japan especially seems to be struggling in the AAA space.
I don't feel too bad about this since I haven't been that invested in AAA games for ages now and I also don't feel any attachment to faceless companies. The genres Capcom are doing and used to do are still around.
None of the other games have had issues as glaring as SF5 did at launch. Sure, Tekken 7's ranked match system was busted in the beginning but it was fixed soon relative to what happens with SF5 without any 8 hour maintenance breaks. And no other release has had issues had issues like this anywhere near the scale SF5 did.
Admittedly I think the single player content in fighters sucks (never saw the appeal of unlocking characters by cheesing a CPU in older games, let alone the dragged out shitty story modes that have become a staple since MK9) but even then SF5 was amazingly lean on single player content. The trials weren't there. The story wasn't there. The tutorials weren't there. The only thing that was there was survival (which needed to be connected to a non-functioning online infrastructure to get any of the rewards) and practice.
If other games are getting "free passes" for things, it's probably because that the issue talked about isn't anywhere near as big of a problem as it might've been in SF5. SF5, for instance, still is hit or miss whether it functions. Even within a tiny European country.
I've said it many times but what Capcom could do is just release arcade mode, stop actively updating SF5 afterwards and then maybe support CPT monetarily until SF6. The ship for SF5 has sailed, no rerelease is going to help them with that.
I don't feel too bad about this since I haven't been that invested in AAA games for ages now and I also don't feel any attachment to faceless companies. The genres Capcom are doing and used to do are still around.
None of the other games have had issues as glaring as SF5 did at launch. Sure, Tekken 7's ranked match system was busted in the beginning but it was fixed soon relative to what happens with SF5 without any 8 hour maintenance breaks. And no other release has had issues had issues like this anywhere near the scale SF5 did.
Admittedly I think the single player content in fighters sucks (never saw the appeal of unlocking characters by cheesing a CPU in older games, let alone the dragged out shitty story modes that have become a staple since MK9) but even then SF5 was amazingly lean on single player content. The trials weren't there. The story wasn't there. The tutorials weren't there. The only thing that was there was survival (which needed to be connected to a non-functioning online infrastructure to get any of the rewards) and practice.
If other games are getting "free passes" for things, it's probably because that the issue talked about isn't anywhere near as big of a problem as it might've been in SF5. SF5, for instance, still is hit or miss whether it functions. Even within a tiny European country.
I've said it many times but what Capcom could do is just release arcade mode, stop actively updating SF5 afterwards and then maybe support CPT monetarily until SF6. The ship for SF5 has sailed, no rerelease is going to help them with that.
They still are, though. SFV is their biggest mishandling in recent times but RE7 was very good and Monster Hunter World looks like it'll be the best in the series. Itsuno's project (DMC5?) is due to be announced sooner than later too and Itsuno has made some of Capcom's best titles.
I'm not seeing what you're seeing in terms of quality games. They still make them.
For example SFV 8 frame input lag (which reduced later) became a meme and everyone even people who barely play fighting games and could never tell the difference were talking about it, yet Tekken 7 is getting a free pass for it and barely Anyone talking about it and even when it's brought to conversation people downplay and mention how for tekken input lag is no big deal despite that not bring true at all. Also when SFV online was barely functional during the first week the hell froze over it, yet when T7 online on ps4 was barely functional for over one month i don't even remember anyone outside few forums talking about it.
Callibretto
Member
the gameplay in their games are still great though. they definitely still have talented game designer there. it's just everything else from presentation, business practice and PR that's still fucked up.
maybe if they release their games as budget price, people will be more forgiving of their sub par presentation.
They would continue the microtransactions and costumes regardless just to milk the group that are still spending on them. A lot of even less popular games keep content coming out for the same reason.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Nintendo will probably push for the revive of Mega Man there, so yes. They wiill probably contract some company to make Resident Evil, like Fatal Frame.
If Nintendo bought Capcom I'd think they would have the company continue making RE themselves. Although a Platinum made RE might be fun.
And thinking of usual Nintendo contractors, now I want a Good-Feel made Mega Man.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
> Capcom are going to go bankrupt soon if their games don't sell well
Capcom still posting yearly profits. 1st parties highly desire their IPs. Their IP's are still multi million sellers.
> They have no talent
MH team still there with MHW looking amazing. Their fighting teams are still there, Itsuno is still there and RE7 was a fantastic return.
Capcom still posting yearly profits. 1st parties highly desire their IPs. Their IP's are still multi million sellers.
> They have no talent
MH team still there with MHW looking amazing. Their fighting teams are still there, Itsuno is still there and RE7 was a fantastic return.
Son Of Sparda
Member
Or how they are ignoring their own strength in making fun action games *looks at RE6*
Fixed2BeBroken
Member
This would make ALOT of sense though
Their only multimillion selling IPs now are RE (which sells half of what it used to) and maybe MH (tba with console move) and possibly DMC (been a long time since the last one).
As for the fighting "team", it seems like Capcom was doing better when they were contracting Dimps and Eighting last gen. Maybe they should start talking to ASW and Arika again?
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
RE7 is still selling and hasn't even been re released yet, MHW has potential, DMC remaster did notably well. These have been staples for a long time.
IP's they lost due to outsourcing were DR and LP. Bringing back Marvel was a good idea and could replace one of those. Really, their only significant blunder was with SFV.
MVCI looks like it's going to be a blunder too tbh.
RE7 isn't done selling but it also won't ever come close to 5/6 sales and it has almost zero chance of hitting Capcom's 2m FY target. The decline here is real.
I expect MHW to underperform versus gen 3/4 globally too, but it should still do a good 2-3m on consoles hopefully and they can always save it with a later handheld conversion (a la Tri/3rd).