How Capcom Predicts Game Sales

[Queasy]

Link - I loathe MTV but their Multiplayer Blog is becoming a must read for me. They keep coming out with some interesting industry articles.

Remember how difficult it was to find the first ?Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney?? Contrary to message board conspiracy theories, that wasn?t actually Capcom?s fault.

When I tried (and failed) to buy ?Tetris DS,? it made me wonder. How does a publisher predict demand? How do they figure out how many copies to manufacture and ship, and when (and why) do they halt production lines?

I?ve been speaking to different companies to figure that out. One of them was Capcom, a company with strong Japanese roots and a large Western audience. They, along with the rest of the industry, wrestle with this every day.

Christian Svensson, Capcom?s VP of business development and strategic panning, admits it?s extremely complicated. Not only does Capcom have to convince retail to order en masse at launch, but the sales cycle itself is changing as the industry grows bigger and bigger.

?The sales life cycle of a product is shrinking,? said Svennson. If a game undersells its first month at retail, it?s finished at retail. Often, though, it?s quicker: if a game underperforms its first week, it is more than likely ?dead on arrival.?

Here?s how Capcom tries to prevent being in that position.

click through for the rest (somewhat lengthy).

 

[R Nilla]

Interesting read. I've been frustrated by this as a consumer. There are some GBA and DS games, for instance, that I've been having a hell of a time trying to hunt down (without paying $50 for "cartridge only" on eBay). It's even more annoying when the game I'm looking for isn't even that old (say 2005 or even 2006).

 

[Queasy]

Yep, I have the same problem with DS games. Forget about finding them at a Wal-Mart or even a Target. They seem to only stock either the shovelware or mainstream kid-friendly kids. Off-beat games like Phoenix Wright (as mentioned in this piece) are almost impossible to find there.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

yet another boon in favor of online distribution...

as it stands, there are many games where the only way to obtain them legally is to hope for a rerelease (often on a newer system)

 

[Dari]

I had such a problem recently with Metal Slug Anthology. The Wii version is ass so I went to look for the PS2 version. Wii was available but PS2 was hard to find. Luckily CAG had a place (and a great deal) on this classic. It'll be here shortly.