There's a lot of data to support how colossal a failure DmC is compared to previous DMC games or similar action games. We have our first two week numbers now and they follow the trend of DMC 4 and Bayonetta. Bayonetta even offers us up near identical data if we take the first two weeks as our example. DMC4 had two weeks of growth before it's sales diminished.
I'll be using the PS3 sales figures as it compliments DmC the most.
DmC:
- Week 1 sales: 362,982
- Week 2 sales: 86,412 (-76.2%)
Bayonetta:
- Week 1 Sales: 138,864
- Week 2 Sales: 28,075 (-79.8%)
- Week 3 Sales: 12,167 (-56.7%)
- Week 4 Sales: 7,142 (-42.3%)
- Week 5 Sales: 4,587 (-35.8%)
DMC4:
- Week 1 Sales: 208,837
- Week 2 Sales: 346,763 (+66%)
- Week 3 Sales: 175,874 (-49.3%)
- Week 4 Sales: 104,571 (-40.5%)
- Week 5 Sales: 71,629 (-31.5%)
- Week 6 Sales: 54,889 (-23.4%) [Included to even out the falling sales figures]
So, if we look at the sales figures for these recent Stylish Action games, we can see a trend in sales figures. After initial first week (Or in DMC 4's case, second week) hype sales ends, there is a steep decline in sales figures from week to week. DmC is closer to following Bayonetta's sales numbers than DMC4's, implying a greater dropoff per week when compared to DMC 4. If we take some high balled number from Bayonetta...
Projected DmC Sales:
- Week 3 Sales: 43,206 (-50%)
- Week 4 Sales: 17,282 (-40%)
- Week 5 Sales: 5184 (-30%)
We see it doing slightly better than Bayonetta did while being drastically worse than DMC 4. It's important to note that Sega considered Bayonetta a failure and was not going to be granted a sequel until Nintendo decided they wanted it for the Wii U. Also, these sales figures are estimates and are likely to be higher or lower than projected. However, Capcom has lowered their yearly sales expectations down from 2 million copies to 1.2 million copies. Contrary to information in this thread, the 2 million projected were estimated on the January sales release. It is on track to undersell compared to every other game in the Devil May Cry series.
If Capcom deems this game a success, than they believe it is a success. However, when compared to previous games in the series, DmC is a flop selling fewer copies than the universally lauded DMC2. It's an unfortunate turn of events for a favorite game franchise but given the mechanic and story changes that Ninja Theory and Tameem instilled? Not surprising.
(Edit: Formatting changes)