Christian Svensson Capcom’s Sr. Director of Strategic Planning & Research spoke about Capcom’s alleged murder of Zack & Wiki. Denying that they intentionally undershipped and failed to advertise the well reviewed/gem of a game.
“Our guys in Japan had a HUGE marketing push for this title. It’s only just come on the market there too so I’m not so sure how you’re passing judgements so quickly.
As for us, let me make a few things clear:
We can’t force a retail buyer to take it (though we got it on the shelf in pretty much every major retailer).
We can’t make a retail buyer expedite freight so it’s on shelf the day after shipment everywhere like Gamestop typically does (which is why Wal-mart and Best Buy only started getting it on shelf on Thursday/Friday).
So for those of you who only shop at Gamestop, either pre-order or look elsewhere to find copies. There were very few pre-orders at Gamestop on Z&W (especially relative to what we’re seeing on the first couple of days sales). If you want to see more units on the shelf day one in that particular retailer, then pre-order. Gamestop bases their day one number as some multiple of its preorders. Period.
A number of retailers we pushed to take more units than they did but they have their own thoughts about the game and the market and make their shelf allocations accordingly. Our day one number was a decent number by any measure, owing a lot to the reviews and PR work that we’ve done. We are not out of stock anywhere except for possible spot out of stocks at Gamestop (probably rectified already as they took their backup order after the first day of sales).
As I’ve said repeatedly, if you’re having a hard time finding it, Wal-mart has the most units and you’re most likely going to find plenty in stock there.”
Apparently Capcom is now an indie developer, and has trouble getting their games in to stores.
Cold. Blooded. Murder.