Yoshinori Ono is now a corporate officer at Capcom Japan

[HD-Man]

I can understand why people harp on Ono about SFxT with its unneccesary gimmicks and cheesy cash grabs. But SF4 while nowhere near perfect, was alright IMO. Hardly a shitty, unplayable mass of a game.

Glad Ono is getting more power tho, we may get Darkstalkers 4 now without all the red tape Ono had to go thru before the promotion.

[Jion_Wansu]

Now maybe we can get Ono and Boon to talk about collaborating…

their joke secret character can be “Ono Noob”, get it? “Oh no, noob!”

[Louiscipher]

I’m neutral. On the one hand it’s hard to tell what exactly Ono’s role is over at Capcom. Yeah, he’s a producer but what exactly does he do? Japan works differently and one guy can have multiple roles in game development and take credit for only one of those roles. But he certainly isn’t involved with the game mechanics as he doesn’t answer any questions regarding that. Same with the character design and those terrible 3D models. He comes off more as a PR guy. He’s there to have some sort of communication with the players and build hype not unlike Christian Svensson but with even more non-answers.

And on the other hand it’s easy to mock him because he IS the face of SF4 and SFxTK. Someone has to be the fall guy in all of that.

[Necrotrophic]

Whose to say that the poor design decisions of SF4 weren’t forced on him? Maybe Capcom didn’t liket he idea of fighters anymore because they were too hard, and they forced Ono to make one that was more casual.

[Hecatom]

SFxT and 3S were gonna flop, the very day they were revealed.

I would have said you were crazy, too. I knew SFxT was going to be a hit. I mean, it still sold 1.8 million, not the 2 mill they were looking for, but I find it hard to believe 200k off was a loss for Capcom.

Shipping 1.8M is not the same as selling 1.8M, the game didn’t break 1M sales.

[iambuttmustard]

SFxT and 3S were gonna flop, the very day they were revealed.

I would have said you were crazy, too. I knew SFxT was going to be a hit. I mean, it still sold 1.8 million, not the 2 mill they were looking for, but I find it hard to believe 200k off was a loss for Capcom.

Shipping 1.8M is not the same as selling 1.8M, the game didn’t break 1M sales.

Capcom does not make money off of sales. Companies make money off of shipments. Capcom SOLD shipments to various retailers.

The only difference between now and 2008 is that Capcom is making new fighting games. For everyone else it’s business as usual.

That and less casuals are buying their fighters. Both MVC3 and SFxT combined barely beat out the commercial success of SFIV or T6. I remember back in 2008 casuals were even playing Blazblue, which was pretty cool to see.

[Hawkingbird]

I’m neutral. On the one hand it’s hard to tell what exactly Ono’s role is over at Capcom. Yeah, he’s a producer but what exactly does he do? Japan works differently and one guy can have multiple roles in game development and take credit for only one of those roles. But he certainly isn’t involved with the game mechanics as he doesn’t answer any questions regarding that. Same with the character design and those terrible 3D models. He comes off more as a PR guy. He’s there to have some sort of communication with the players and build hype not unlike Christian Svensson but with even more non-answers.

And on the other hand it’s easy to mock him because he IS the face of SF4 and SFxTK. Someone has to be the fall guy in all of that.

For a producer who has no programming background like Ono he likely used his role to act like a manager.

[pherai]

Capcom does not make money off of sales. Companies make money off of shipments. Capcom SOLD shipments to various retailers.

ok, so they sold half the units they shipped, and they didn’t even ship enough to hit their target sales. how much of a success could they really call it at that point when half the units you shipped are decorating gamestop shelves? you can’t dupe retailers into stocking games they can’t sell forever.

[Pete278]

Most games sell a low percentage of the units shipped, it’s an old con done by publishers so you can’t pay for all the stock and so they’ll do it cheaper if you buy more of their next game. This is changing a bit these days, though, thanks to Valve revolutionizing distribution with Steam, but that only effects PC games.

[iambuttmustard]

ok, so they sold half the units they shipped, and they didn’t even ship enough to hit their target sales. how much of a success could they really call it at that point when half the units you shipped are decorating gamestop shelves? you can’t dupe retailers into stocking games they can’t sell forever.

You hinted at the problem. Capcom shipped more than enough games to retailers (they made off like fat cats), however, retailers can’t move them and now Gamestop is stuck with the bill, they probably lost money.

Which leads to a greater problem. Gamestop/other retailer execs see two giants like SF and Tekken combined do poorly and are now reluctant to take large shipments of any fighting game. And if retailers don’t want to sell fighting games, there is no need for large companies like Capcom and Namco to make them on a AAA scale. We haven’t gotten to that point, yet; but there is no reason why we should be headed, even remotely, close in that direction.

[Hawkingbird]

Capcom does not make money off of sales. Companies make money off of shipments. Capcom SOLD shipments to various retailers.

ok, so they sold half the units they shipped, and they didn’t even ship enough to hit their target sales. how much of a success could they really call it at that point when half the units you shipped are decorating gamestop shelves? you can’t dupe retailers into stocking games they can’t sell forever.

It must have been a success to a small degree as Capcom didn’t stop support of the game. Game companies ain’t going to pour money into a game that didn’t make them any profit. Lost Planet 2 was on the same boat and it’s getting a sequel this June.

[pherai]

decreasing/disappointing sales is not a good enough reason?

[Mr.X]

In the US at least, distributors can return unsold units and get some of their money back.

Sven actually explain this Unity not too long ago.

[iambuttmustard]

I wonder how much they actually get back.

[Hecatom]

SFxT and 3S were gonna flop, the very day they were revealed.

I would have said you were crazy, too. I knew SFxT was going to be a hit. I mean, it still sold 1.8 million, not the 2 mill they were looking for, but I find it hard to believe 200k off was a loss for Capcom.

Shipping 1.8M is not the same as selling 1.8M, the game didn’t break 1M sales.

Capcom does not make money off of sales. Companies make money off of shipments. Capcom SOLD shipments to various retailers.

And when those games that they sold to retailers don’t sell, they have to amend to the retailers for it.

[rayplay]

I know companies make money off of shipments, but do the companies get anything back from the actual sells? I’m still a newb to this stuff and IIRC, it basically goes

Company sells product cheaper to warehouse who sells cheaper to retailer who sells more expensive to customer to make a profit.

[Mr.X]

In the US at least, distributors can return unsold units and get some of their money back.

Sven actually explain this Unity not too long ago.

Ah whoops remembered incorrectly

http://www.capcom-unity.com/ask_capcom/go/thread/view/7371/29636565/has-marketing-changed-in-video-games?post_num=19#528643149

It depends on the territory.

In Europe, distributors and retailers could, in extreme circumstances, return stock to us. In the Americas, we do not accept returns under any circumstances. Instead, we will “price protect” and use “co-op marketing” to eventually continue to step down the price of the goods that are on the shelf until they eventually sell through. Price protection and co-op are mechanisms for reimbursing the retailer/distributor for a portion of the price they paid, in effect allowing them to reduce the price to consumers and still make their 20%-25% margin (retail really has little risk). You’ll eventually see price protection get down to $9.99 at retail… which means, in effect we’ve reduced the wholesale price of the goods to a point of $6-$7 so retail still makes their margin.

Now the bad news is, even absent the development or product development expense, our costs of goods to produce each unit is closer to double that bottom wholesale price. So the loss per unit, especially once you allocate already sunk marketing and PD expense can be many times that $6-$7 a unit factor in the worst scenario. This is another reason why forecasting and production management is so critical. A miscalculation could effectively errode any return you would have made on the product.

For the Japan market, everything is a firm sale. There’s no returns AND no price protection. In that market, the retailer actually takes more of the risk.

Your last question is you probably have is:, ok, what if you have goods and materials leftover in your warehouse? What happens to those?

Eventually, if they can’t be sold at any price, from a financial perspective, you may eventually have to write them off and scrap them to get the inventory off of your books. Once that’s done, you can’t sell the goods at any price and they have to be destroyed. Usually this is a very, very small number but in a catastrphic scenario (see Atari 2600 E.T.) it can be very significant.

[iambuttmustard]

snip

Companies are not Legally obligated to do anything if retailers can’t sell off a game.

Capcom and probablly a few other companies are just honorable and go back to help stores get the games off if the situation is bad enough. Plus, it’s just good ethics. And I’m certain they aren’t using the entirety of their profit to help stores sell thier failing games. They wouldn’t keep investing in SfxT if they did.

I know companies make money off of shipments, but do the companies get anything back from the actual sells? I’m still a newb to this stuff and IIRC, it basically goes

Company sells product cheaper to warehouse who sells cheaper to retailer who sells more expensive to customer to make a profit.

Pretty much…

*“When MS says that it shipped 8 million Kinect units in 2010, it means that it SOLD 8 million kinect units to retailers. However, this number does NOT represent product bought by end-using customers (me and you), even if some ambitious fanboys or PR types would like you to think it does. **But remember, as far as a companies financial statements are concerned… these are units sold, and the company has its money.”

---

Shipped vs Sold

You can buy directly from the company’s warehouse if they have it available, ie Capcom store. They’ll make money off of direct sales, then. That’s why Apple has Apple stores.

[Hecatom]

shit

Man you have to be truly stupid or a sad troll to believe that.
Is all about of how the deals are done, as the post of Mr. X pointed, the game companies and the retailers have legal deals on how they are going to proceed in the case that their games don’t sell, this varies from region to region.

Add that if a retailer sees that the games of a company don’t sell they are not going to keep making deals with them since it costs them money.

[iambuttmustard]

@Hectacom

You’re reading comprehension is pathetic, not to mention you have a very nasty case of some bug up your ass.

I said LEGAL, not contractual (deals). There is no LAW saying companies need to compensate for retailer’s failure to sell a product. That’s stupid. Capcom (not the entire industry, Sven’s only talking about Capcom) agrees to a “deal” (whether it’s binding or not, Idk) with retailers and if it is broken, they go to CIVIL court (if it’s more than just a scratch my back deal and is actually a contract), not CRIMINAL court.

You said companies (everybody) “HAD TO AMEND”, like it’s against the law if you don’t. lol