Capcom's CPS system brings success to the firm ... and offers direction for a troubled video market
How sweet it is.
How sweet to have a top video hit (heck, a whole series of top video hits).
How sweet to have accurately forecast the market, and provided operators and distributors what they need to make money.
How sweet to have converted the skeptics into supporters. How sweet to hear the people who said, "We don't want to hear about systems," changing their tune to "What's your latest system title?"
At Capcom, they're savoring the sweet taste of success these days. "Looks like we're sold out on Mercs and we haven't even started making them," smiled VP of Sales & Marketing Bill Cravens. "Final Fight is a monster. U.N. Squadron and Willow were major hits. Things can't get much better than this! For Capcom, this is the good time."
The heart of the Capcom success story is their CPS System. It's a board-based exchange program offering top titles with in-depth play and excellent graphics. ..plus a hefty operator rebate/trade-in program. "I know many other manufacturers are complaining about a soft market, but the CPS System has been phenomenal for us," Cravens said.
The success of CPS is no accident. "It all goes back to four years ago," Cravens explained. "When I first joined this company, our President Kenzo Tsujimoto foresaw the success of the Nintendo home system. He said, `The only way we can make money is to give people twice what they can get at home.' And he was right: home game competition did explode, and it did take some serious dollars from the coin machine side. It meant coin-op video games had to bring more excitement
VP of Sales & Marketing Bill Cravens
to the streets and arcades than kids could get by playing their 8-bit Atari or Nintendo system at home.
"That's what we offer with CPS," Cravens continued, "a much more powerful engine and graphics chips. Game after game, nobody can touch us. And on top of that, after operators run our CPS games for a couple
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of years, we give them $500 back when they trade in the board on a new game (or in the case of Mercs, $400 back)."
When Capcom first announced, a few years back, that it was going forward with the development of a brand new system concept, some
tradesters were openly skeptical. "We didn't even call it a system at times, because people don't like to hear that word," Bill Cravens said. "And when we first started the trade-in/rebate program, people said: `You're holding our $500; why not give it to us now?' But now that we're getting strong games, like Final Fight, U.N. Squadron, and Mercs, they see it makes sense."
Capcom's U.S. sales topper is a long-time believer in the kit/system concept. Bill's experience with kits started with Mr. Do!, the industry's first kit. In the early '80s, Bill was responsible for getting Universal to market the game in that format.
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Capcom's M. Nakamura (executive assistant to Mr. Tsujimoto), President George Nakayama, Chairman Kenzo Tsujimoto and export heavy Ryuichi Hirata during the distributor meeting that intro'd Willow.
