Part of an IGN interview with Christian Svensson...
IGN: Since Nintendo announced a new console for release in 2012, I thought we should take a look back at Capcom's output for the Wii. The company so far has put out about 14 titles in North America, nearly half of which were ports of some sort. If I had told you in 2006 the Wii would sell nearly 80 million units you'd be ecstatic and want to make sure Capcom had tons of software ready. In reality, the company put out very few titles.
Svensson: 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.
IGN: Any regrets with the Wii?
Svensson: 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.
IGN: For Nintendo's next console, will you be a bit more on top of the ball?
Svensson: 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.
IGN: For Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10, I don't recall Capcom ever talking about whether or not those were successful titles given the budget for those two games. Were you pleased with the results?
Svensson: Yes, we were pleased with the results. Let me also say don't let the 8-bit nature of those games make you think that they didn't cost much to make because they were not inexpensive. They were efforts, in many cases, larger than most of our other digital efforts in terms of budget. They are not small. We are modestly pleased with how 9 and 10 did. Mega Man 9 especially, I think, was particularly innovative for the time to look back and give classic fans some love. We haven't done anything like this. No one's done a classic throwback quite like that and it was one of the first this generation to do it.
IGN: I wanted to touch on Mega Man Legends 3. There was talk earlier that despite being announced it's not actually green lit for development. Can you clarify the status of this title?
Svensson: It's still not. It's green lit for prototype, it has not been green lit for production. The distinction is an important one in that the prototype green light allows the team to spec out what they're going to build and put together a prototype, a playable version of the game to show internally. In this case we're sharing the prototype publicly with everyone to collect feedback to then go back into the production cycle. Production would imply more headcount put against it and the other part is the full plan for what are we building the final product.
Part of that was supposed to be a collaborative effort between the development room and the fans in a very public, transparent display of what goes on behind the scenes. Part of that transparency is, and making clear to fans, is that we're not in production. The pins and needles feeling that the team has every day of, "Is this game ever going to come out?" is in some ways shared by the fans who've put their blood, sweat, and tears into this thing, too. It's an ambitious experiment in many ways and that community outreach and transparency is something I've been pushing more and more for years. When the team came forward with the approach they wanted to take with this title, I was extremely supportive of providing that level of visibility and input. It's listening to the market in ways that a lot of Japanese developers don't do.
The challenge with this of course is that you're opening the kimono very early on and sharing details on a game we hope comes to market. All of our games start this way. It's rare when something enters production that it doesn't come out at that point.
Full interview here
IGN: Since Nintendo announced a new console for release in 2012, I thought we should take a look back at Capcom's output for the Wii. The company so far has put out about 14 titles in North America, nearly half of which were ports of some sort. If I had told you in 2006 the Wii would sell nearly 80 million units you'd be ecstatic and want to make sure Capcom had tons of software ready. In reality, the company put out very few titles.
Svensson: 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.
IGN: Any regrets with the Wii?
Svensson: 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.
IGN: For Nintendo's next console, will you be a bit more on top of the ball?
Svensson: 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.
IGN: For Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10, I don't recall Capcom ever talking about whether or not those were successful titles given the budget for those two games. Were you pleased with the results?
Svensson: Yes, we were pleased with the results. Let me also say don't let the 8-bit nature of those games make you think that they didn't cost much to make because they were not inexpensive. They were efforts, in many cases, larger than most of our other digital efforts in terms of budget. They are not small. We are modestly pleased with how 9 and 10 did. Mega Man 9 especially, I think, was particularly innovative for the time to look back and give classic fans some love. We haven't done anything like this. No one's done a classic throwback quite like that and it was one of the first this generation to do it.
IGN: I wanted to touch on Mega Man Legends 3. There was talk earlier that despite being announced it's not actually green lit for development. Can you clarify the status of this title?
Svensson: It's still not. It's green lit for prototype, it has not been green lit for production. The distinction is an important one in that the prototype green light allows the team to spec out what they're going to build and put together a prototype, a playable version of the game to show internally. In this case we're sharing the prototype publicly with everyone to collect feedback to then go back into the production cycle. Production would imply more headcount put against it and the other part is the full plan for what are we building the final product.
Part of that was supposed to be a collaborative effort between the development room and the fans in a very public, transparent display of what goes on behind the scenes. Part of that transparency is, and making clear to fans, is that we're not in production. The pins and needles feeling that the team has every day of, "Is this game ever going to come out?" is in some ways shared by the fans who've put their blood, sweat, and tears into this thing, too. It's an ambitious experiment in many ways and that community outreach and transparency is something I've been pushing more and more for years. When the team came forward with the approach they wanted to take with this title, I was extremely supportive of providing that level of visibility and input. It's listening to the market in ways that a lot of Japanese developers don't do.
The challenge with this of course is that you're opening the kimono very early on and sharing details on a game we hope comes to market. All of our games start this way. It's rare when something enters production that it doesn't come out at that point.
Full interview here
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