RE4 announced for PS2.

[Farid]

darkblu, the mainstream is, simply put, defined by the (its) market.
The videogame market's mainstream is about GTA/Sport/FF/Racing game, just as the numbers are telling us.

While other markets have different "mainstreams", the videogame market has its own, and it's, definitely, not about Harry Potter, nor other younger age games.
It's kind of clear, at least to me, of course.

Maybe you're talking about the very "general mainstream" people have in mind, read families.
But, the videogame own mainstream is not composed of the same crowd. And that's what i'm saying.

harry potter sold a boatload _only_because_ it was a classic case of a big mainstream title. comparing it to RE still makes no sense -- the majority of parents will not be getting RE4 to their teen kids no matter whether you or i think it's a mainstream title.

I'm not arguing about the fact that Harry Potter have the same audience that RE has, i'm just saying that a "last gen" game can sale a lot of copies even while the next gen rolls in.

anyways, we're getting way too far from the subject: i say that this genius 're4 going ps2' announcement will affect RE4 sales negatively for the whole of its lifetime. if you think otherwise then share your reasons.

I don't know why it would affect negatively the sales of RE4, except for the PS2 owners that were ready to buy a GC for this game (If they were ready to go as far as buy a console for one game, they can wait 10 month, or if they REALLY want it, they'll buy the console anyway.).

All i see is Capcom going from a ~15M potential buyers market (Market where M rated game are not exactly best seller, to say the least) to a 15 + 75M potential buyers market (Market where M rated game are doing very well).

Capcom released RE: Code Veronica on PS2 almost exactly 1 years after the DC version, and it didn't stop it outselling the DC version by 50%. Code Veronica PS2 is still the best selling RE this gen BTW (And it's been released in the middle of 2001, when the instaled PS2 base was nowhere close to what it is today... Or will be in 2005).

Well, that's just my opinion, and as the proverb say, to each his own.

 

[Readykilowatt]

The real loser here is Nintendo

(1) The majority of Resident Evil fanbase already owns a Gamecube. They will make up the bulk of the sales of RE4 on the Gamecube.

(2) RE4 will attract some new sales from long time Gamecube owners who were previously not interested or turned off of the RE franchise (due to sluggish controls, pre-rendered backgrounds, etc).

(3) The PS2 owners who planned to purchase a Gamecube and RE4 were already interested in buying a Gamecube (and some of its games in 2005) before hand. They will still buy a Gamecube to play RE4. As was said before, RE4 is the trigger.

(4) However, the PS2 owners who planned to purchase a Gamecube only to play RE4 is in a very small minority.

(5) New console buyers (looking for a nice action game to play in January) will walk into a store, see RE4 (with the only for badge) and a $99 Gamecube and purchase the both of them.

In summary, RE4 will move just about as many Gamecubes as it would have regardless of the "RE4 is going to PS2" news. There is no loser, Nintendo is still going to benefit from a Gamecube sales spike when RE4 comes out in January. Capcom is also going to benefit by selling more copies of RE4 one year later on the PS2. As I have said before, this is all much ado about nothing.

 

[Inane_Dork]

As I've said before, those games were just the same old Res Evil with new graphics. While they were still reasonably big games, and sold like it too, people did not expect them to be smash hits.

Well, I don't know where you were when Capcom announced RE games for the GC, but where I saw, RE was the "mature" savior of Nintendo, sure to beat down the Microsoft menace.

In retrospect, it's only too easy to say you didn't expect them to affect the GC much. It's always simple to say your expectations line up with history. But there was a buzz that N had finally pulled it off. They turned out to sell over a million units apiece, I think, but they were nowhere near blockbuster level.

Of course there is every reason to expect that it would sell extremely well.

You keep repeating this, but there's no proof to it. You have to completely debunk any reason why it will not be a great seller, but you have no done that. History predicts otherwise. You, correctly, point out that this is different, but what closer pattern do we have? Baseless speculation from a random Nintendo fan?

(3) The PS2 owners who planned to purchase a Gamecube and RE4 were already interested in buying a Gamecube (and some of its games in 2005) before hand. They will still buy a Gamecube to play RE4. As was said before, RE4 is the trigger.

Without the trigger, no shot is fired. There is no reaction without the catalyst, and RE4 is the catalyst (according to you). Why would they buy a GC to play a game they can play on a console they already own? They're not exactly lacking in titles to fill time, you know.

(5) New console buyers (looking for a nice action game to play in January) will walk into a store, see RE4 (with the only for badge) and a $99 Gamecube and purchase the both of them.

That is one hypothetical situation out of millions. Do I even need to explain how pointless it is? I sure hope not.

 

[thop]

I think the GC is screwed and i'm pretty sure that it was kinda declared dead internally. Sales will be still nice on the RE4, but it won't change anything. All forces are probably working on Revolution now. I'm also getting the feeling that Zelda is gonna get pushed back as launch title for the Revolution. That's a system seller if i ever saw one.

 

[Legion]

xbox version please?

Ditto.

I could sell my cube to help fund Halo 2 then.

or EQ2 and FFXI

 

[Evil_Cloud]

I think the GC is screwed and i'm pretty sure that it was kinda declared dead internally. Sales will be still nice on the RE4, but it won't change anything. All forces are probably working on Revolution now. I'm also getting the feeling that Zelda is gonna get pushed back as launch title for the Revolution. That's a system seller if i ever saw one.

Nah, they still have quite a lot potential to sell many more systems.

 

[Magnum PI]

I'm also getting the feeling that Zelda is gonna get pushed back as launch title for the Revolution. That's a system seller if i ever saw one.

let's admit that zelda is a system seller.
it should sell very well on GC, especially now when there is some installed base, so nintendo would make much money from it.
and it could help nintendo to regain some of the momentum they lost, that will partly be translated in more "revolution" sales.
they can certainly have other system sellers for the revolution launch.

 

[thop]

No doubt about that, they will surely sell a few millions. I don't see any other system seller besides another Mario game then. And, unless it blows everyone away like Mario64 did, i'm not even so sure Mario is a system seller anymore. However Mario128 has been in development forever now, so maybe sth. good comes out of it. And i hope they don't have MP3 as a system seller, a third iteration within 4 years might be a bit too much. I think the demand for another MP is not very overwhelming at the moment.

 

[Farid]

However Mario128 has been in development forever now, so maybe sth. good comes out of it.

Yep, but a lot of "versions" of Mario 128 were scraped along the years.
The last time Miyamoto did a comment about Mario 128, he said that he don't know what platform will receive this Mario 128...

 

[passerby]

I think the GC is screwed and i'm pretty sure that it was kinda declared dead internally. Sales will be still nice on the RE4, but it won't change anything. All forces are probably working on Revolution now. I'm also getting the feeling that Zelda is gonna get pushed back as launch title for the Revolution. That's a system seller if i ever saw one.

Agree 100%. All efforts are likely on their handhelds and nextgen.

they can certainly have other system sellers for the revolution launch.

Looking at the NGC with hindsight, failure to keep up with a stream of key titles going was one of its greatest undoing. After an excellent launch, this was followed by nearly a year(I think) of nothing. Then the vicious cycle kicks in: fewer games -> fewer buyers -> fewer devs -> fewer games -> fewer buyers -> fewer devs -> ...... I'll say that Nintendo is better off saving their really big ammo to keep their new console going during that sensitive and critical 1-2 years.

 

[Li Mu Bai]

Where are you all getting your misinformation from? (not from Capcom's fiscal, or quarterly meetings that's for sure) REmake surpassed Capcom's initial sales projections, & RE:0 underperformed by 200k iirc. (according to their fiscal year predictions) They still have easily supported the PS2 with the bulk of their development time, expenditures, & exclusive titles which is where they got burned at in actuality. Commercially both Onimusha's 2 & 3 severely underperformed, RE:Outbreak, DMC2, Maximo 2, etc. (according to Capcom's projections) It looks as if the PS2's VJ & Under the Skin are well on that track as well. Not to mention Capcom's decision to make titles like Mega Man: X8 exclusive to the PS2, when the compilation & Megaman X are currently selling slightly better upon the GC.

Whether it's due to Capcom expecting too much because of the PS2's enormous userbase, or them simply over inflating projections, their major blockbuster titles have done increasingly worse as time has progressed upon the PS2. RE4's R&D budget alone probably raised bigwig eyebrows. Even if their sales projection number was only 1.8 million units on the GC ww. (REmake is currently at 1.3, & RE:0 1.2 last I checked months ago) So they were in trouble well before this, remember their real estate fiasco last year?

 

[Bohdy]

Li Mu Bai: Thanks, all that is exactly what I was going to point out.

InaneDorK: "Going by past trends" ReMake sold very well for 'just a remake', Re0 sold extremely well (1.2mil last I heard from Capcom) despite being 'just a prequel that wasn't very good'. Going by that Re4 being a 'true continuation of the series and looking extremely kick-ass to boot' should have sold like <an analogy of something selling very very well>.

 

[Kalin]

I don't see why Capcom must lose employees to make a PS2 port. Can you explain that, please? Any reports about Mikami's extreme disappointment are premature at this point.

I'm exploring the hypothetical (an unlikely IMO) situation you suggested, where Capcom doesn't care that much about developing on Nintendo (especially GC) platforms. I'm arguing this would, admittedly, leave them with enough other options, but will be a huge loss of investment. Therefore it doesn't sound believable to me.

 

[Phil]

Readykilowatt

(1) The majority of Resident Evil fanbase already owns a Gamecube. They will make up the bulk of the sales of RE4 on the Gamecube.

They are? Explain to me, then, where all the sales have been when Capcom released the GameCube versions? When doing so, also be ready to compare the sales of GameCube RE games with those on the old PlayStation. As I see it, many of the RE fans waited with buying a GameCube, because as far as ports and a remake and a cut/paste job, there was no reason to. Resident Evil 4 would have been a reason - a reason that has just slipped as it will be hitting the platform that was its target audiance last generation.

(2) RE4 will attract some new sales from long time Gamecube owners who were previously not interested or turned off of the RE franchise (due to sluggish controls, pre-rendered backgrounds, etc).

The question isn't if it will gain extra sales not influenced by another port. Nintendo is ultimately the looser because the chance of other platform buyers buying a GameCube because of RE4 is much smaller.

(3) The PS2 owners who planned to purchase a Gamecube and RE4 were already interested in buying a Gamecube (and some of its games in 2005) before hand. They will still buy a Gamecube to play RE4. As was said before, RE4 is the trigger.

They are? How many 'cases' do you know? I for one will certainly be rethinking my purchase of a GameCube + Resident Evil 4.

(4) However, the PS2 owners who planned to purchase a Gamecube only to play RE4 is in a very small minority.

Again, how many cases do you know? There are 75 million PS2 buyers out there... even a small percentage is already a very big 'minority'. (compare that to the 15 million GameCube userbase). What factual basis do you have for stating something like this?

(5) New console buyers (looking for a nice action game to play in January) will walk into a store, see RE4 (with the only for badge) and a $99 Gamecube and purchase the both of them.

True. And what about a year later when new console buyers (looking for a nice action game to play in January '06) will walk into a store, see RE4 for two platforms (one being the most successful console this generation)?

In summary, RE4 will move just about as many Gamecubes as it would have regardless of the "RE4 is going to PS2" news.

Despite you trying to downplay the importance the lost exclusive, it certainly will have an impact on its sales - at least by the PS2 users that won't buy a Cube anymore because of it.

There is no loser, Nintendo is still going to benefit from a Gamecube sales spike when RE4 comes out in January.

Loser not in terms that they won't benefit at all, but certainly losers in terms of not benefiting as much as they could if such a deal wouldn't have changed.

Capcom is also going to benefit by selling more copies of RE4 one year later on the PS2.

...sales that could have been GameCube's + RE4.

 

[Farid]

(REmake is currently at 1.3, & RE:0 1.2 last I checked months ago)

Source:NPD

20- Resident Evil Capcom 467 300

Source:Enterbrain,INC

20 - Resident Evil Capcom 267 470

Source:various european charts

Resident Evil ~298 300

For the record, the European charts are definitely not centralized (nor calculated using the same methodology), therefore the numbers are really to be taken with a grain of salt, but, nevertheless, they still a good indicator.

RE0 is indeed around (actually a little more) 1,2M copies sold.

Edit:Typo

 

[thop]

After seeing the new footage of upcoming games release by Nintendo i think the GC might not be dead yet afterall. Some games look really nice, especially Starfox who is more like Starfox64 now. And boy did i love Starfox64!

 

[Kalin]

After seeing the new footage of upcoming games release by Nintendo i think the GC might not be dead yet afterall. Some games look really nice, especially Starfox who is more like Starfox64 now. And boy did i love Starfox64!

Ditto. Nintendo doesn't seem to be dropping the Cube support at all And here's a link, with links: http://www.planetgamecube.com/news.cfm?action=item&id=5785

 

[Johnny Awesome]

There's really not much there to attract a new audience to Cube though. Mario Party 6? Talk about thrashing a dead horse. Nintendo needs to invest in serious new IP. Sure, I'm looking forward to Metroid Prime 2, the new Zelda, and Killer 7 like everyone else, but they really need to get more games out there.

 

[a4164]

I wish they would stop taking Fox out of the Arwing

 

[Inane_Dork]

InaneDorK: "Going by past trends" ReMake sold very well for 'just a remake', Re0 sold extremely well (1.2mil last I heard from Capcom) despite being 'just a prequel that wasn't very good'. Going by that Re4 being a 'true continuation of the series and looking extremely kick-ass to boot' should have sold like <an analogy of something selling very very well>.

You're adding a thick layer of opinion to the facts. You're interpreting them to support what you already believe instead of looking to them to see what they actually imply.