Capcom on Wii support, no regrets with their output for the console, brief Project Cafe talk
There’s actually some really interesting quotes from Capcom below regarding their support for Wii. Actually, this is the most I’ve heard them discuss their thoughts on the system in quite some time. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Capcom’s Christian Svensson on the company releasing very few titles for Wii…
“It’s not about necessarily the number of releases, but I would argue we have probably three or four in the top 20 on Metacritic. As a percentage of our share of the top 20 Metacritic games out of the number of Wii titles released to date, we certainly over-performed. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, Zack and Wiki, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, Monster Hunter Tri, and Okami are all probably up there.”
Svensson on Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop…
“Maybe not up there (laughs). But I would say as with any portfolio, some things come out the way you hope and some things don’t.”
Svensson on any regrets he has with the Wii…
“I think like much of the industry, I wish I knew what it was going to be a year before it actually became apparent what it was going to be, in terms of market acceptance. I don’t know that there’s any publisher you could speak to going into that window that would have said ‘It’s going to be that.’ Maybe Ubisoft did, they’re the only ones that bet really heavily out of the gate on it. But I’m not sure if they capitalized on it any better than we did in the end.
There are certain things I wish we would have done, but the problem is the windows of opportunities closed. When it became apparent we should have done something, the chance had already passed us by from a business or development standpoint. But other than that, it was not terrible. We’ve had some major successes. The Wii helped us grow the Monster Hunter brand in the West. Our most successful Monster Hunter in the West was Tri in both North America and Europe. I think Zack and Wiki was an interesting experiment; very creative in its approach and reinforced that Capcom innovation is alive and well here. We brought Tatsunoko vs. Capcom to the West when everyone said it wouldn’t come. We proved them wrong and it was modestly successful.
I’m not disappointed with our Wii output at all.”
Svensson on whether Capcom will be a bit more on top of the ball with Nintendo’s next console…
“I’m going to have to hold those cards closer to the vest. We’re a multiplatform publisher, and I think anytime we have new hardware coming to the market that can be a canvas that our creators can create on and help them execute their visions, we’re supportive of that. There’s more news to come on that front in the future.”
