Devil May Cry, But Fanboys Cry Louder [ COMIC ]
I don’t want you to think I’m double teaming Sony with the previous comic and now this one. No this isn’t about Sony. This is about their fanboys.
On March 20th, Capcom did what many other game developers have been doing recently… taking an exclusive PS3 title and making it multi-platform. The title was Devil May Cry 4 and its going to be released on the both PS3 and XBox 360 simultaneously. The difference with the other titles is that the fanboys are revolting.
There’s a petition online signed by over ten thousand pissed gamers that says they are no longer going to buy Capcom games because Devil May Cry 4 went cross-platform. To add more fuel to the fire, these upset fans then asked Capcom if Dead Rising and Lost Planet (exclusive Xbox 360 titles) would in turn be released on the PS3. Capcom answered “no.”
So the PS3 fanboys are pissed and I can see why. This and the other titles that are longer PS3 exclusive titles hurts Sony (not to put salt on the wound, but theres talk about Final Fantasy XIII no longer being exclusive either). What they’re not taking into consideration is that Capcom is not trying to hurt Sony. They’re just protecting themselves.
There are about 2 million PS3 owners and 11 million Xbox 360 owners (source). Now the average PS3 or XBox 360 game costs about $20 million to create and they must sell at least 500,000 copies in order to make a profit (source). If Devil May Cry 4 was an exclusive title, Capcom would need to sell to around 25% of the people who own PS3s in order to make a profit… that’s a pretty lofty goal. In contrast the game would only have to sell to less than 5% of the XBox 360 owners to make a profit. And combined the individual percentages are even less.
The reality is that businesses exist to make money. If they fail to make money, then they fail to exist. The fanboys might not like it and Sony might not like it, but the reality is Capcom needs to make money in order to survive. If it were your company and the choice was making money or potentially losing millions, would your decision be any different?
