Capcom only has $152 million in the bank

My God, how did they get so deep into a hole?

 

Without going into so much depth, basically the majority of Japanese gaming industries have taken a nose dive and are tried throwing money at the problem to solve it, with Capcom spending a lot on underwhelming and underselling games, and relying on established franchises to keep them afloat.

It's not totally surprising, with most every Capcom game being co worked with the related consoles company, like with Sony or Nintendo. It's their last attempt before doing a THQ or turn into another sort of gaming company. Maybe it'll work maybe won't, depends on how well they market and make their games.

 

Well, maybe they'll make a last-ditch game like Square Soft did with Final Fantasy, pull it off, and manage to stay afloat.....or they could just completely lose everything and we'll be down 1 major gaming company. Everyone, prepare for the funeral of the megaman series altogether.

 

Difference is the failing Japanese console market in general, whilst Final Fantasy was the beginning of the Japanese gaming market expanding.
And it won't be the end of Megaman, they intellectual properties will be sold off to other companies, likely, and that will mean some other company will make a Megaman game and any other IP that gets sold off. But that's not what's happening here, just a possibility.

 

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The thing is... Mega Man should still be vastly popular, but they might be at the point of milking the cash cow from it... But I never played Mega Man, so i don't know.

I've heard a lot of people complain about their lackluster games and DLC the first day and several other DLC's that run amock and are ridiculous from reviewers. Like Marvel vs. Capcom and other such games. Which in itself doesn't appeal to the market.

For the industry going downhill in Japan, I kinda have to disagree. I see Sony coming back as a massive powerhouse this generation with the trainwreck of the One and competing against the Wii U. I think most people forget the PS2 DOMINATED the market during it's generation, and still shows strong sales in several areas. Despite the problems with the PS3, it's finally starting to recover and come back as a massive powerhouse.

As for companies like Square, I think this was a rough patch, people are already making plans on KHIII and FFXV. I'm not saying the games are going to be the godsend that saves everything, but I'm saying one generation isn't a time to judge, people tend to forget that Square has been a powerhouse in the past and seems to finally be learning from their mistakes.

 

Difference is, Sony is a BIG company that does a lot more than just make games. Not just game consoles, but DVD players, Blu-Ray players, TV's, music records, etc etc.

Square Enix is a publisher of video games first and foremost, though they do still develop games obviously. They have a much, much smaller production scale than Sony.

It is true though, that the AAA Japanese side of video games lately has been kind of disappointing. How many Japanese developed games are we seeing winning awards in the past 6 or so years? And how many new IP's have been well received that were Japanese?

As Libre put it (better than I'm about to) It's a combination of reasons for this: trying to appeal the widest demographic possible while alienating people who actually liked the original series', spending way too much time and money on aesthetics rather than focusing on gameplay, pushing the sale of DLC that could have (read: should have) been on the disc for no cost, constantly misunderstanding the fan base, attempting to rely on making sequels/remakes/reboots of once successful series' instead of trying to really try making successful new ones, outsourcing development too often (see: Konami's treatment of Silent Hill,) and feeling that porting many would-be successful games would be detrimental.

Of all the reasons I've posted, Capcom has been the worst offender in my eyes, so I can't say that I didn't expect this. Still, I hope they figure out how to buckle down and actually focus on making fun, substantial games again.

 

Not at all true. The Japanese markets are fine. It's the one's like Capcom trying to be more western that aren't making profits. Nintendo made profit and is selling more Wii U's and 3DS's, and I'm preeeettty sure SCE profited too. Libre, can you confirm?

I see you're one of the 100k strong for MML3, too, huh?

Capcom went under by throwing away their fanbase time and time again while trying to appeal to a new audience with big fat stacks of cash and chucking money at their over-sized design teams because they're way over staffed and you can't lay off people in Japan, basically. Capcom's fault was its own inflation. This is simple. This isn't something we need to identify with a culture. This isn't something we need to place onto a multitude of studios and publishers. This is seeing growth and taking it too far. This is the fault of greed.

 

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I said most, not all of them, I thought it obvious that a few companies would be bucking the market trend.
Like libre says, most of the larger publishers are having a bad time, especially when compared to the boom they experienced in the late 90s early 00s, it use to be the Japanese market being superior last gen, but this and likely next are and will be western dominant. The fact is Square are afloat thanks to their western acquired Eidos and other branches outside of their console developed games, whilst Nintendo's development of games is appalling for their consoles. They use to be able to rely on third party stuff keeping their console software line up at least noticeable and maybe desirable, but now that the WiiU's bigger, more desirable titles are being made by Nintendo and Ubisoft almost exclusively, their weaknesses are starting to show. The 3DS market is the only thing keeping them afloat.

From what I've seen in a lot of Japanese companies is the inability to manage and reduce the costs of a studio, a lot of time they'll spend money into projects that take years (FFXV being the greatest example) or they'll finance a game they expect to sell more than is realistically possible with their marketing of it. There are just trends from a business stand point, and Capcom follows some of these.
Small gaming niche companies that libre mentioned don't incur some of the same inefficiency in cost management and generally do better from being a smaller company.

 

I think that is obvious that Japan doesn't have the same "importance" that it had in previous years (and previous generations) sure it still is a great place for idea and games, and gaming.. but just looking that Japan won't get a "next generation console" this year (and pretty much everyone else will) shows that.. even countries that are under crisis like some EU countries , and others that don't have a great market (but can expand, unlike japan) like Brazil, are getting Ps4 this year, we can justify however we want it, this would not happen in the Ps2 era.. it was Japan's era. They just focused elsewhere, they could just easily put their console next year or make japan priority, which they didn't as they do not get the money they expect in there anymore.

 

Considering that Capcom, from what I heard, mind you... I don't know much about Capcom compared to game makers like Square and Rare before MS screwed them over...

That's a bad sign. I heard Capcom has been focusing on making fighting games for a long time. The fact they can't make a game that's usually, note: usually, their huge moneymaker not including Mega Man which might be the cash cow/ATM machine, is not a good thing.

 

If they were willing to make Mega Man games they probably wouldn't be in the mess they're in

 

Mega Man really doesn't have the best selling track record, I can't blame Capcom at all. Maybe Maverick Hunter would've sold well, MAYBE.

THIS IS COMING FROM SOMEONE WHO DESPISES CAPCOM AND SPURNS THEM EVERY CHANCE HE GETS FOR CANCELING LEGENDS 3. I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN TO WAKE UP ONE DAY AND HEAR THAT THEY HAVE TO AUCTION OFF THEIR IP'S.

Still, after all the Capcom UK layoffs, maybe now Capcom will be able to build up some bank since they'll be paying less people. And they're not allowed to lay off their Japan departments so that was actually probably a smart, yet sad, move.

 

Their money makers have always been Street Fighter, Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, not MegaMan. It's just has a big cult following.

It seems doubtful that Capcom will go under in the near future though, if only because of how huge Monster Hunter is in Japan.

 

Starting like five games and then not releasing them can't be GOOD financially though >.>

 

Production and marketing are the most expensive parts of development so it actually probably did save them money.

The issue with Capcom's sales is that their fans feel betrayed big thanks to Legends 3, DmC, RE6, and the sh*t they said about each incident. Capcom has really dug their own grave, especially with all the outsourcing (did Raccoon City really need to be a thing?) The other issue is that they spend waaaaay more than they could ever sell. If RE5, RE6, MH3HD, and DmC had been lower budget games, Capcom's future wouldn't be so bleak.