Remember how difficult it was to find the first “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney”? Contrary to message board conspiracy theories, that wasn’t actually Capcom’s fault.

When I tried (and failed) to buy “Tetris DS,” it made me wonder. How does a publisher predict demand? How do they figure out how many copies to manufacture and ship, and when (and why) do they halt production lines?

I’ve been speaking to different companies to figure that out. One of them was Capcom, a company with strong Japanese roots and a large Western audience. They, along with the rest of the industry, wrestle with this every day.

Christian Svensson, Capcom’s VP of business development and strategic panning, admits it’s extremely complicated. Not only does Capcom have to convince retail to order en masse at launch, but the sales cycle itself is changing as the industry grows bigger and bigger.

“The sales life cycle of a product is shrinking,” said Svensson. If a game undersells its first month at retail, it’s finished at retail. Often, though, it’s quicker: if a game underperforms its first week, it is more than likely “dead on arrival.”

Here’s how Capcom tries to prevent being in that position.

Read more…

Starting this week and lasting who-knows-how-long, I’ll post my daily progress in all of the video games I’m playing. Mock my taste! Marvel at my progress! Experience my triumphs and failures vicariously!

Over the weekend, I….

• Completed the final nine (of 20) levels of “Devil May Cry 4” on Human difficulty. This was my first “DMC” game. I failed to make the top 10,000 global ranking list on any of the game’s levels. Very sad. Biggest positive takeaway: the ludicrously diverse arsenal of moves controlled superbly. Biggest negative: how come no one warned me that “DMC” games have such basic and vacant level design?

• Played chapters 4-14 of “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune,” on what is my third try to push through the game. I’m enjoying it enough to finish it this time. But I have trouble accepting that the charming Nathan Drake who I see in cut-scenes flirting with TV producer Elena is the same Nathan Drake who, in the gameplay parts of this game, I send on murderous head-shot, jeep-blasting killing sprees. Wry leading man? Or sociopath killer? He’s both. And she doesn’t mind! It sometimes seems that certain kinds of gameplay sometimes gets in the way of certain types of character development? Oh, and I’m playing this game on standard def, which might be the reason the colors look a bit - blue? Wonder if anyone else had that issue? All my other games look great.

• Played 35 puzzles of “Professor Layton And The Curious Village.” This game is hard to quit. I just wish I knew where in the world Puzzle #8 was. It’s bugging me that #8 is not in my Puzzle Index, between #7 and #9. I got to that chickens and wolves puzzle. Solved it on my second attempt, thank you very much. Toughest puzzle for me so far: the one requiring me to give the length of a diagonal drawn into a rectangle drawn into a circle. I’m mad at myself for that.

I think I’ll play some more “Layton” tomorrow. Not expecting much else.