DmC: Devil may Cry’s first week of console sales fail to meet Devil May Cry 4′s

Max Kelly examines and compares the first week of console sales for both Devil May Cry 4 and DmC: Devil may Cry.

[Nitrowolf2]

Inb4 Ninja Theory Blames The Fans and Not the decisions they made to anger them.

Look I've been playing the game, and I'll be honest its not that bad. But this sort of outcome, just because you made a good game, doesn't mean the fans that they and Capcom took a dump on are going to forgive them and support it. I think we all expected this to do poorly in sales.

[LOGICWINS]

Whatever you think about the new DMC, I think everyone can agree that its to our benefit that Capcom gets humbled. I like BOTH the new and old directions of the franchise, so I'm fine with whatever way it goes in the future. Still, Capcom was too overconfident with this game.

[MaxKelly]

10 BILLION COPIES!

[Root]

"Still, Capcom was too overconfident with this game."

Really because I think they were s******* themselves.

The sudden release of defence articles a month before release saying roughly the same thing, then the ones covering everything up like they had turned all "haters" to love the game and not to mention the actual reviews which like the defense articles pretty much all said the same thing. The learnt from their mistakes with RE6, they thought RE was a big enough name to get good reviews automatically but they under estimated reviewers and it did terrible. They needed this to succeed for sales...which obviously now they still failed.

When it came to the reviews most of the big site reviews had roughly the same pattern which seemed too suspicious to me

1) Try and sell you the game

2) Call the "haters" and how they were "wrong"

3) Say how good it is but hardly explain why it was good/better

4) Say it's much better and an improvement when really it was a step back for the franchise in every way possible

Most of them hardly even talked about the games or the legit problems it had. Capcom knew if they did whatever they did to these sites that smaller sites would follow.

Am I saying they were paid off....no, am I saying they COULD of been paid off....most likely but even then it doesn't need to involve money, they could of bribed them with a press kit, some one in a kind freebies or they could of threatened them..."Give us a good review or we won't give you any info first on Remember Me" for example, which to sites/game magazines is a big thing because gamers will go else where for info and they'll get lower hits/sales which is something they don't want. Kind of why I think COD never gets low scores.

Whatever the case I hope this is a bloody wakeup call to Capcom and I hope they take out there anger on Ninja Theory.

I just want them to lay off DMC for a while and come back later with DMC5. Pretend that dmc just didn't happen.

[Godmars290]

Capcom's hope was that it would bring a new audience to the series. Problem was they weren't expecting and didn't understand the reaction of its fans. That's why its done poorer than DMC4, a game who's sales they weren't happy with and caused the shake up which eventually resulted in the remake.

And Ninja Theory did themselves no favors by jumping in announcing they'd do better, when all they ever done is "generally okay".

@LOGICWINS:
Nothing is going to "humble" Capcom. Not when they've made so many obvious mistakes this gen, only to stand by them.

[Forbidden_Darkness]

Perhaps you never played Heavenly Sword or Enslaved, or perhaps you did and didn't enjoy them, but both games were quite awesome in my opinion. So, I disagree with that and I just think releasing it in January wasn't their best option, because games released in that month generally don't sell quite as well when released as they do in other months. I expect it to continue to sell pretty well over the next few months though. I enjoyed the demo quite a lot though, so I will definitely pick the game goes down in price and when I have less games to beat.

[LOGICWINS]

Honestly, I think even if the fans embraced this game, it had no chance to do extremely well saleswise.

The general 360 community doesn't care for hack n slash games, and the PS3 community are saving up/waiting for GOW: Ascension and MGS: Rising(BOTH arguably look like better experiences than DMC).

And January is always the bad month for game sales since people are recovering from holiday spending and still playing the stuff they got on Christmas.

The Internet negativity surrounding DMC played a role, but there were other factors.

[Godmars290]

"I'm going to defend the game and NT here but I'm not going to actually support them? Blame time of year despite this coming at the end of a post-holiday game drought?"

Really?

And though I liked HS when I - BOUGHT IT DAY-ONE - I honestly got bored with it on the first play though and didn't finish it. Likely why I was unimpressed over all with the Enslaved demo, didn't buy the game, and formed the opinion that NT were more about presentation.

@LOGICWINS:
Naw. With it being offered on three more established platforms where DMC4 was only on two it just starting their cycle it - logically - would have sold better with positive fan reaction. Instead Capcom shot fans in the foot, with NT stomping on it for good measure with smoking meth-fiend, and never even tried to make amends. Or rather they did but it came off as further insult.

Thing is even if they do a DMC5 and ignore this game they'll likely get it wrong again. Fail to continue the story they dropped.

[OmegaSlayer]

There's a TINY little thing that wasn't mentioned.
Devil May Cry 4 was released almost 5 years ago with a much slimmer install base, at least 1/5 of the current install base.
This puts the data in a much more impressive frame.
Fans wants bigger, better and more badass.
ALWAYS.
This DmC is a good game that unfortunately falls short in everything that is Devil May Cry spirit.

No one can disagree about this:
-Fewer weapons and without a soul, they don't even have cutscenes worth of the name they have
-The platforming could have been way better adding wall run to spice it up.
-The game is NEVER sick and over the top enough
-Only 4 moves on the sword button, simple button mashing, delayed button mashing, charging the attack, fwd-fwd button...it's honestly too few...neither Hunter nor Lilith grant a new weapon...that's bad.
-None of the bosses has a soul and the fights are forgivable, even IGN only rank Bob Barbas in the top of the saga bosses and more as a meta-game experience than as an actually cool boss
-The characters are weak and uncharming
-Lack of lock-on button is a big problem
-The ending is terribadawful, really weak
-It's easy even at higher difficulties, I also think that little bit of difficulty lies in the lack of lock-on that makes crowd control rely on luck more than skills.
-Fire weapons are almost useless
-No taunts!!!!!!!
-Devil Trigger is a scam and not fun, a way to replenish health and get out of bad situations easily.
-You don't mock your fanbase
-No explanation of "Jackpot"
-The voice acting is baaaaaaaaaaad and, the lines are poorly written and repetitive.

Then, this is arguable but...
-The Ikaruga mechanic and forcing a weapon to block an attack is cool...but somehow wrong
-Only 30 fps
-The artistic direction is very cool but the gothic atmosphere has another kind of vibe
-Was a reboot needed?

As I said this game was a missed opportunity, it could have been a masterpiece just listening to the fans requests.

[Blackdeath_663]

for a company like capcom that has been so focused on making money recently which is evident when you look at their DLC practises as of late (like all the on-disc dlc nonsense) maybe sales will help put some sense in them.
i don't understand why they made the decisions that they did, if the game is targeted at existing devil may cry fans why did they ignore,alienate and even poke fun at them in a cutscene in the new game? and if the game is targeted at a completely new audience why risk losing existing fans and destroying an already popular franchise that you could one day return to? i bet if they had made a new game entirely that had nothing to do with DMC instead it would have probably been even more popular.

[e-p-ayeaH]

Ninja theory games just cant be popular the name doesn't matter their games just lack that "flare" that make people buy it.

Do you see Heavenly Sword 2 or Enslaved 2 coming soon? i dont.
Their games always turned out to be disappointing to most gamers so there´s that.

[e-p-ayeaH]

I wonder if this gets a sequel or simply capcom forgets about this franchise for good just like Onimusha.

capcom its just like most movie producers in Hollywood full of bad moves.

[bigtrucknd]

DMC 4 took more than 10 hours to beat which is why I bought day one. I can not spend 60 bucks for ten hours when I know in a couple of months DMC will be 20 bucks.

[TronEOL]

*Not counting PSN Digital purchases, and Steam/Origin/any other digital "retailer" (which DmC was within the top 5-10 for about 3-4 weeks on Steams Top Sellers list).

And not only are these numbers incomplete, but I can guarantee you if DMC followed the story of DMC4, it wouldn't have sold any better. This genre isn't exactly as popular as it once was. As there are few games that sell "well" in it.

To put it in perspective: Bayonetta, a game absolutely loved by gamers of this genre only sold 1.9m in it's lifetime. DmC is already at 500,000 in it's first two weeks or so not counting ANY digital copies sold.

DmC is doing well given the environment. A "canon" DMC never would have made a difference. If it did, the balance of new players vs old players would either balance each other out or it'd sell less.

I know I wouldn't have bought it if it was the same old thing, and neither would others I know.

This is simply another case of "We need change!" followed by "Dammit! Why did you change my game?!". Developers will never win as they can't satisfy everyone, and the minority of players end up the loudest.

[Godmars290]

Except people weren't asking for change. What they wanted was more content and relevancy for the main character, not just see him backtracking and cleaning up after the "new" guy.

[MaxKelly]

Steam sales were purposefully not included, as the title says it's just for consoles. And yes I am aware that Steam is available on PS3 but then those sales are probably added on just like everything else. Also, the game isn't available on Xbox LIVE nor PSN and yes, it was in the top of the charts this week but that doesn't suddenly mean it's going to top DMC4's record.

Oh and your comment on change? This whole "You're just resistant to change!" malarkey is the same affair as "entitled" but thank you for assisting that silly little mindset. In fact, I may just write a full article on such an ideology but I will say this much now:

Change isn't objectively good. If a game changes its formula, it doesn't suddenly become praiseworthy. If the change is bad, it was never worth doing.

[FunAndGun]

DMC is available on PSN and has been since day one. There are currently 577 ratings so it sold at least that many. I am sure only a fraction of buyers rate however.

[akumous]

I will be honest, I hated the initial look of dante and then they made changes which lessened my dislike a bit but it still wasn't dante. I may give the game a try but capcom should have kept the original design and mannerisms of dante and then the game could have done better financially.