{"id":47454,"date":"2025-04-25T19:12:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T10:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=47454"},"modified":"2025-04-25T19:12:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T10:12:39","slug":"ace-attorney-became-a-hit-ip-only-because-capcom-pushed-past-the-failure-of-first-game-according-to-former-dev","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ace-attorney-became-a-hit-ip-only-because-capcom-pushed-past-the-failure-of-first-game-according-to-former-dev\/","title":{"rendered":"Ace Attorney became a hit IP only because Capcom pushed past the \u201cfailure\u201d of first game,\u00a0according to former dev \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bandai game producer Taira Nakamura recently caught the attention of industry peers \u2013 including former Ace Attorney developer Masakazu Sugimori \u2013 by raising a concern in today\u2019s game industry: how difficult it\u2019s become to create new IPs and nurture them beyond just their initial release.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWith development costs rising,\u201d Nakamura writes on X<\/a>, \u201ccreating a new IP is tougher than ever. Popular IPs usually grow gradually over time, as a series progresses. Pok\u00e9mon and Monster Hunter didn\u2019t become hits overnight. They’ve grown into what they are through multiple entries. That\u2019s why you don\u2019t often see a brand-new title suddenly selling like crazy, on the same level as these long-running franchises.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, with development costs skyrocketing to, as Nakamura notes, upwards of tens of millions of dollars per title, developers can still end up in the red or with little to no profit margin even if their new IP is well received. \u201cThen that project gets labeled a \u2018failure,\u2019 and despite being a hit, it never gets a sequel and never gets a chance to grow as an IP. But IPs are something you nurture. It\u2019s important to think of the long-term, not just the performance of the first release,\u201d Nakamura comments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Ace<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In response, former Capcom developer Masakazu Sugimori, who created the OSTs for the first two mainline Ace Attorney games and voiced Manfred von Karma, expressed agreement<\/a>, citing Ace Attorney as an example of an IP that was nurtured despite being a \u201cfailure\u201d at first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Sugimori, the series\u2019 first game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney did <\/em>break even, but it was by no means a hit in Capcom\u2019s eyes. It sold between 70,000 and 80,000 copies on the Game Boy Advance in its first week, whereas titles like Devil May Cry and Resident Evil were selling a million copies in their launch weeks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, Takumi-san (Ace Attorney series director Shu Takumi) didn\u2019t give up. 
He kept developing the series through to the third game, and that\u2019s when it started to take off. From there, it got a movie, a stage play, an anime\u2026 its popularity kept growing. Ace Attorney is truly an IP that Capcom nurtured,\u201d Sugimori concludes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Capcom developer Masakazu Sugimori talks about the early days of Ace Attorney – when it was considered a failure by Capcom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":47457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-47454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nAce Attorney became a hit IP only because Capcom pushed past the \u201cfailure\u201d of first game,\u00a0according to former dev \u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Capcom developer Masakazu Sugimori talks about the early days of Ace Attorney - when it was considered a failure by Capcom.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/ace-attorney-became-a-hit-ip-only-because-capcom-pushed-past-the-failure-of-first-game-according-to-former-dev\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ace Attorney became a hit IP only because Capcom pushed past the \u201cfailure\u201d of first game,\u00a0according to former dev \u00a0 - 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