Capcom has announced that shareholders have voted to not renew the company's existing takeover-defense plan, a countermeasure instated six years ago to prevent a third party acquisition. With the 2008 defense measure abandoned, Capcom is vulnerable to buyout if any shareholder or group acquires a majority of its shares.
A statement issued from Capcom's Investor Relations report notes the company will continue to focus on enhancing corporate value and the interest of its shareholders. In the event of a hostile takeover, management will respond with the necessary legal measures within the "admissible limits of applicable laws and regulations." They will also make sure "there is sufficient time for shareholders to examine the proposed large-scale purchase and reach a decision."
This news does not guarantee the company will be bought out, but it does mean the possibility of an acquisition exists. It's also worth mentioning an offer is currently not on the table. Ultimately, though, this is something we will continue to observe from the sidelines.
Source: Capcom IR
What can I get with ten bucks?
ReplyDeleteDLC.
DeleteIn-game DLC. :P
DeleteI think SEGA is a good company to aquire Capcom. SEGA does a good job of localizing games and I can see them giving Megaman similar treatment to what they give to Sonic. Sure, Sonic games can be hit-or-miss, but they faithfully release them, not at the absurd CoD rate, but at a decent rate. They could actually give us what we want: moe Megaman. The only other decent company would be Nintendo.
ReplyDeleteActually you're wrong about sega's localization history. Valkyria Chronicles and the Yakuza series say hello from Japan. Both haven't been localized despite very vocalized requests.
DeleteReally? Please do tell me about how they skipped over the last two Yakuzas, the last Valkyria Chronicles and continue to struggle getting PSO out the door.
DeleteGiving Mega Man Sonic treatment. Are you joking? Also black and white manual suck.
DeleteLet's also not forget the gutted audio tracks from Phantasy Star Portable 2, and the totally shot Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity.
DeleteIt's almost like MegaMan X4 and Operate Shooting Star.
Ah. So that's where that rumor of Nintendo buying them out stemmed from. Now I see!
ReplyDeleteWhere did that rumor come from? Seems rather sudden given the timing. I would like for it to be Nintendo though.
DeleteIt wasn't a rumor, more like wishful thinking. Capcom been in trouble even before they started shit like On-disc DLC and stuff. All the corner-cutting has finally caught up with them.
DeleteIf someone does decide to do a takeover, then I hope it is a reliable, competent, and well known company that respects and won't dig Capcom's franchises further down the hole.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember when Konami bought out Hudson Soft and series like Bomberman just ended there? Yeah...
I know I'm so disappointed about that. I love Bomberman and now he's gone, just like that...
DeleteLong live Saturn Bomberman.
I was gonna say! Thanks for bringing this up, Anonymous! Konami is definitely not a good choice to buy Capcom out...
DeleteNintendo is the answer here. Sega's in-house games since the Dreamcast have been glitchy, unpolished crap for the most part. That doesn't mean Sega games aren't fun, just that Nintendo's programmers are the hands Megaman needs to be in.
ReplyDeleteThis is bad... they lost everything... anyone can buy Capcom, so they can change Mega man and other popular games into something else. Like... reboot Mega Man, reboot DMC, reboot Okami, and more.
ReplyDeleteI got a baaaaaaaaaaaad feeling about this.
TBH, Capcom had thoughts about rebooting MM anyway. Or at least those in the American division expressed that.
DeleteAs opposed to the good feeling you get when you see the Mega Man IP sit unused / abused for so terribly long?
DeleteAnything would be an improvement at this point. The recent and current clowns heading Capcom have failed too hard and consistently. I sincerely hope the Capcom name is forever erased.
I am worrying because if Capcom is a failure, Megaman and others will go down into the toilet. Meaning, we will never see them ever again. Or maybe if the company buys Capcom and remodel Mega Man into something else, it's going to ruin everything. Something like that.
DeleteI) Megaman being changed is nothing new. There has been 7 series. A 8th wouldn't mean that much.
Delete2) With all the wild fan support lately, only a bigger foul than Capcom would buy the IP and try to change him that much, at least without given some attention to classic series.
Way to go, Top Men. To quote the rude awakening of Optimus Prime,"You've run this organization right into the fucking ground."
ReplyDeleteHopefully this might someday mean good things for our favorite IPs.
True that. As those Top Men didn't stop using Top Spin, now they are dizzy and getting a Hard Knuckle.
DeleteComcept should buy Megaman
ReplyDeleteI agree.
Delete"We wish to announce two new playable characters for Mighty No. 9 - Mega Man and Roll..."
DeleteThe Internet would explode from the shock.
I would love to see these games in the hands of a competent company like Nintendo.
ReplyDeleteInafune kickstarter! Lets help him buy them out.
ReplyDeleteCrapcom bought this on themselves. They thought everything needed to be a triple A game that sold millions and that's why they have fallen.
ReplyDeleteHopefully a competent third party buys them up.
Gee betting all their money on the mobile market sure worked out well didn't it guys?
ReplyDeleteIwata! Inafune! You guys hearing this!? Start the bidding war NOW!
ReplyDeleteIf someone buys out Capcom's shares, it doesn't mean a company like say Nintendo will own 100 percent of it. Capcom would still be the developer of these games.
ReplyDeleteSo even if Capcom are bought out, there's still the chance they won't do a single thing with MM. Just saying.
Looks like Capcom's dubious business practices are finally starting to catch up to them.
ReplyDeleteWhatever may come of this, I hope that Archie comic is allowed to continue.
If Nintendo buys them you could wave goodbye for sure, Nintendo actively turned down Archie three times in the past for comics.
DeleteThat's something I'm worried about, too...
DeleteNintendo! Nintendo! Nintendo!
ReplyDeleteCome on, guys! Chant with me!
What? hell no! If there is gonna be a company to acquire over 50% of Capcom's stock, and assume power over most of its legendary I.Ps, I sure as heck don't want it to be some first party console dev that gives less than 2 craps about brand loyalty, and is only about cash money. There's more on the line than Rockman you know, I want my true I SAID TRUE Breath of Fire 6.
DeleteCome on Bandai you you can do it, you've already merged the crap Namco! That or any other competent 3rd party dev.
You know what would be really nice tho, is if some rich b**** bought Capcom and fired the clowns running it now. Then they hire competent staff to replace those idiots, and left Capcom as is after that. I don't want other companies' peanut butter in my Capcom jelly, well unless it's a crossover... Or Marvel, but Marvel is already caught by the neck, from the insurmountable Micky Mouse headlock.
I suppose there is SNK. Bwahahaha..... man I'm drunk.
You have PS3/4, right? So if Nintendo buys Capcom, that means you won't play MM game on different console because it's only Wii U from now on? Like no more Mega man games on PS3/4 and XBOX360/One?
DeleteYeah, all those great Mega Man games on the PS4 and Xbox One.
DeleteSuch as...
I haven't commented here in awhile. But here's my 2 Cents. Capcom should sell their Series to Individual Companies. Mega Man/Rockman should go to Nintendo. Street Fighter, Final Fight,and Darkstalkers should go to Namco-Bandai. While Devil May Cry,Resident Evil,Dead Rising,etc should go to Konami.
ReplyDeleteThat's my view and I'm sticking by it. Glad to be back posting here again.
You know who would have made a better DmC than Team Ninja did?
DeletePlatinum.
What does Team Ninja have to do with anything? You mean Ninja Theory?
DeleteI swear, if Sony buys Capcom, I'll kill myself.
ReplyDeleteWow, their five-year plan reeeeeeally worked out for them, huh? Maybe if it had included "make the games our customers keep asking us for" somewhere in that outline, they might not be in this fix.
ReplyDeleteI just hope whoever buys Capcom would be open to negotiating a deal with Comcept so they can make some Mega Man games...or even outright buy the IP later when they make some money.
Man please, we all know Legends wasn't gonna do jack for that company's finances, except maybe deplete it. Go enjoy Pokemon or something.
DeleteFans have been asking for more than just Legends. Why single that game out?
DeleteBesides, you can try and say Legends wouldn't have done jack for the company's finances, but nobody can really say. They certainly did great without games like that though, eh?
"Why single that game out?"
DeleteAre you serious? One name for you dude, Dashe. DA SH E, DUDE!
You must be new around these parts.
I'm fully aware of that. It doesn't change my point at all.
DeleteDashe said "Make the games our customers keep asking us for," not "make Legends 3."
Believe it or not, Capcom has other franchises and plenty of people have been asking for new games from various franchises. Dashe's point still stands because making the games their customers asked for may have benefited Capcom. The five-year plan they had didn't exactly do wonders for them, another point Dashe made.
But please, continue to only focus on Legends 3 in an attempt to disregard perfectly legitimate criticisms simply because the person pointing them out is named Dashe.
Bravo.
Quit being a such a tool. Legends 3 wasn't going to be a blockbuster. But look at what happened when Capcom focused on games that no one really wanted like Lost Planet 3, DmC, and RE6. They did more to deplete it's finances than Megaman game ever will.
DeleteOkay A. You asked a question I answered. B. You are way too serious.
DeleteBut if you wanna go that route, fine. Dashe doesn't make any legitimate points, she is purely going by assumptions and bias. The majority "other" franchises that the majority of vocal minorities ask for, where never big sellers, and many of which have never had any indication that they'd do better in the future. Many times Capcom has tested the lesser franchises' sustainability, through various polling, re-releases, and community efforts, all of which usually fair below Capcom's goals and expectations. There is no solid basis that them taking to the direction of the mobile market, or creating new I.Ps, would be anymore beneficial or harmful to updating niche cult favorites.
That said, who in the heck said Capcom is doing any worse now than it did before the shareholder voting? The take-over defense was just only initiated in 2008, god forbid they continue to exist the way they've existed for over 98% of the company's life right?
What Dashe is saying is basically the equivalent of me saying well if I was never born my dad could have been a millionaire. Maybe Legends 3, a proper BoF6, Final Fight, Vampire etc would be majorly beneficial to Capcom financially, but at this point, that is purely conjecture that past evidence leans unfavorably for.
But yeah, continue to white-knight an issues for conformity without any solid grounds because you assume other people's intentions.
Bravo.
I seem to remember Capcom mentioning being happy with the sales of games like Mega Man 9 and 10, as well as sales of things like Ducktales Remastered.
DeleteThe only one I remember them explicitly saying they weren't pleased with was Darkstalkers Resurrection.
People really need to learn the difference between "big sellers" and "profitable games." A game can be profitable, and therefore helpful to a companies financial help, without being a big seller. So long as the budget is kept in check. Capcom decided to forgo those smaller scale, safe profits, in order to chase large AAA sales, as well as trying to get that one ios game that takes off like they have seen from other companies. So far it doesn't seem to have paid off particularly well. I believe that's the point Dashe was trying to make.
As for your point of Capcom having existed without the take-over defense, you do have a point, but at the same time, why did they bother implementing the take-over defense, keep it for six years, and then suddenly drop it? It seems to suggest a loss of faith from the shareholders that occurred over the course of those six years.
I did point out that it was conjecture before, so it seems we are agreed on that point, but I would also point out that the industry is much different than it was back when those games were released, so I personally don't think much of that "past evidence."
As the other Anonymous pointed out, making games nobody wanted (or in ways nobody wanted depending on the example) hurt Capcom financially more than releasing these other smaller projects likely ever could. That may also be what shook the shareholders faith in the company.
Also "continue to white-knight an issues for conformity..." would you like to try this sentence again?
Maybe you could also try and come up with something witty or something instead of parroting what was said by someone else as well.
"continue to white-knight an issue for conformity". Sorry I had a lot of grammatical errors, I was super tired and sleepy when I wrote that.
DeleteAnyway, at least this time you didn't get all super macho and serious on me, so I guess I can return the courtesy by turning the attitude down a notch.
Anyway, sources from Capcom have stated many times in the past that the Legends series wasn't profitable, in fact, the two most recent physical titles released from the series down right bombed, and are probably the worst selling in all of the franchise. Keiji Inafune also explicitly informed customers that the sales for ZX were unsatisfactory, and encouraged people to purchase ZXA so to do much better than ZX if they wanted to see the series continue, to which ZXA did even worse upon arrival. That's just MM, similar things happened across many other franchises.
Also Capcom didn't neglect their past franchises either. Many were asking for a new Strider game, many were asking for a DuckTales update, many were asking for Marvel vs Capcom 3, MM10, Monster Hunter etc. They delivered some old favorites, as well as taking chances with big, bold new I.Ps. I think that's a sensible way of going about things personally. Also for the scale of a company like Capcom, you can't expect them to rely on small incremental pockets of profit. That just wont work, by the nature of even being in the state of development those smaller titles would be hurting the company, if the company isn't getting the support it needs from some other resource. That small but safe profit practice, IMO only works with small indie development groups.
Capcom not delivering games IN WAYS nobody ever wanted is probably your most solid argument on this matter, cause a loss of talent to me is def the reason (if there even needs to be a reason) they are doing bad (if they are) at the moment.
Say what you will. But Capcom wouldn't be in the position it's in if they didn't continuity foul-up over such a relatively short time. The Legends 3 fiasco was just one of many, not even the first or biggest.
DeleteI actually wasn't referring to the grammatical error, rather I didn't understand what you were trying to say completely. I think I understand a bit better now though. Not that I necessarily agree.
DeleteBack on point, that's kind of what I mean. The two "most recent physical titles" were back in the playstation era (unless you count the psp remake that was only released in Japan, but that's a very limited view of the market anyway). Things have changed a lot, and Capcom could do a lot more to sell the Legends games now, never mind the fact that there was never really any advertisement for Legends back when advertisement was more important than ever since the internet wasn't at the point it is now. Long story short, times have changed and Capcom didn't exactly do their best to sell Legends back then anyway.
As for the ZX games, that kind of ties in to the last point in a way, don't you think? Delivering games in ways nobody wanted? That's using a bit of hyperbole of course, I know there are some people who enjoyed the ZX games, but if Capcom was unhappy with the sales of it, why make a sequel? And if they really wanted the sequel to sell, why not put together some big ad campaign, instead of just having Inafune ask people to buy the sequel? What if the ZX games were just ones that had no mass appeal either at the time or on the platform and something else could have worked better? Seems like wasted resources.
I don't know what other franchises you're talking about, but it sounds to me like Capcom manages their IPs pretty terribly based off of ZX as an example. To be fair I feel Capcom has handled Mega Man fairly poorly for most of it's existence though, so I don't know how apt the comparison is to other franchises. Just my opinion.
I agree that Capcom shouldn't RELY on small pockets of profit, not completely. That was kind of the point I was trying to make. But those smaller but still profitable ventures should be used to help them fund their larger projects, as well as give them some money to fall back on in case those larger projects under perform, as some of them have.
At the beginning of the last console generation Capcom was pretty good about finding a balance, but as time went on they became almost completely focused on AAA games and mobile games, having fewer middle ground releases when people are asking for more, which have the potential to grant Capcom more safe profit as mentioned before.
Who knows? Some of those smaller IPs could grow into something larger (though not necessarily huge) and more successful if handled right, Mega Man included. If Nintendo could take a franchise as niche and unknown as Kid Icarus and turn it into a million seller on the 3DS, I'm convinced any franchise at least has a chance in the right hands.
I was gonna comment on Rockman Dash 1-2 and collection, but I wanna keep it short this time, and I don't feel like or feel the need to talk about that series to get my point across, for now.
DeleteAnyway as for ZX, I believe it did get largely promoted in Japan, and I believe it was mostly the JPNs audience Keiji was referring to for supporting the series the most. As to why they would make a sequel if the previous entry was unsucsessful, OK. For one that is the exact same argument you could use for MML, but I'll just ignore that for the sake of the greater good. I don't actually know why they'd make a sequel, maybe they saw potential in it and gave it another shot, maybe they loved it that much, who knows? Point is nobody was having Keiji do anything, I believe it was something that he just brought attention to, but failed regardless.
Other franchises hmm, Darkstalkers/Vampire(Vampire Chronicles/Darkstalkers Resurrection), Power Stone(Power Stone collections), Okami(Okamiden), Veiwtiful Joe (the many great but terrible selling games) just to name a few off the top of my head. Now take those and replace them with Street Fighter (SSF2THDR), MvC (MvC2-xbla/psn), MM (MM9) RE(the many terrible but still good selling games), the difference is when the later series I list were given opportunities, they've proven to be successfully profitable, which lead to their continuation.
Anyway I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree that Capcom "lost the balance", if they are doing bad I will continue to believe it is because of two things, in till proven otherwise. One, the rapid progression of technological advancements as well as the rise of the western market, and western style games. Two, Capcom's continues loss of talent, and bad PR management. If Capcom is going to die, those are the things I believe is gonna kill them.
The comparison you make between ZX and Legends as for why they would get a sequel is fair enough in my mind, but only in the sense that Legends 1 really probably shouldn't have gotten to Legends 2. I think an argument could be made for making a sequel now since that was so long ago, the market was quite different, and there are more ways to promote a game now than there were back then. Not that Capcom would do that with a Mega Man game of course.
DeleteAs for ZX getting heavily promoted in Japan, I honestly don't know. I haven't heard anything about it. I didn't hear about the games in the States until long after they were already out. Again, if they wanted the second one to sell more, they really should have promoted it better. Not just in Japan, if they even did that there.
Of all of those games you listed that don't sell, I can't really say any of them were marketed. Not particularly well anyway. The fact that Mega Man ended up on your second list is more surprising than anything. Street Fighter, MvC, and Resident Evil all have had much more in terms of marketing and advertisement. Tremendous amounts of funding, which may actually be a problem when people talk about bloated budgets. But it's because of that that I personally feel the comparison is not apt.
Maybe those other games could sell as well as Resident Evil, Street Fighter, or at least Devil May Cry if they were given the same chance. Just because Mega Man is big enough to get by relatively on its own doesn't mean every series is, but it also doesn't mean they are living up to their full potential. Of course now I'm getting into "what if" territory. Main point, people, especially Capcom, should know not to expect big sales if they aren't going to promote the games, and then go on to compare those sales to games that they promote heavily.
Loss of talent and bad PR management, as well as bad management as a whole is what I believe will lead Capcom to die if it does reach that point myself, so we are in somewhat agreement there.
As for the western style games thing, I do find one thing kind of interesting. Sven mentioned that Mega Man 9 and 10 sold far more in places like the US than they did in Japan. A company who was better at managing the IP, or a better company in general, might have made something of that little fact, but Capcom of Japan is still all too happy to dismiss Mega Man as a series that isn't popular outside of Japan. Such a waste.
All I got to say is this... Serve Crapcom right! I hope Nintendo, Bandai Namco or SE buys out Crapcom or either Inafune and we'll have our Blue Boy back.
ReplyDeleteLet Keiji Inafune buy them out. =0)
ReplyDeleteif m#9 does really well, comcept might have the money.
DeletePsssst... Hey Nintendo!
ReplyDeleteActually.... What would happen if Disney decided they'd like to acquire a game development company?
ReplyDeleteMore classic NES remasterings? Marvel VS Capcom being owned by the same group? A chance for certain franchises to appear in feature films or TV shows?
One can only imagine. Disney vs. Capcom? Mega Mouse? Duckstalkers? Goofy - Ace Attorney?
DeleteAll I'm asking for in this is that Mega Man and MAINLY Mega Man get bought by Nintendo. DMC I wouldn't be too sure of since it's been on both Playstation and Xbox. Dead Rising would become a pure Microsoft property. Street Fighter and GnG, I'm not sure of either.
ReplyDeleteNo Mega Man needs to go to Comcept and be multi-platform.
DeleteNow that I think about it, I really hope Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft do not jump on this. I'd rather have a 3rd party game company cause then the titles won't be limited to one system, as much as I would love it to Sony (say what you want, I happen to like the games that are on PS), it would be more beneficial for everyone for the titles to be multiplatform.
ReplyDeleteI really hope Concept buy a few shares