Capcom’s sales and profits are down again, due to lack of major releases, and underwhelming sales of the ones that did come out. To date, Capcom made 104 million dollars in sales, which is almost a quarter less than the previous year. In addition to that, they lost near 7 million dollars in operation income, the income before earnings and taxes.
They place the blame on foreign loses, caused directly by “the rapidly rising yen”. Nintendo has also made similar statements, and has also been claimed an issue in their latest financial report. Capcom has also stated that “increased development” is also a source of depreciated profits.
But you do not need to be a corporate financier to understand why Capcom might be feeling the burn. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice was selling according to plan, but it is merely a working lifeboat on a sinking ship.
Capcom has not released the sales report on Resident Evil: Umbrella Corps, which leads investors to believe that it is not selling as well as they thought. Their biggest release so far, Street Fighter V, has sold less than expected. Capcom expected Street Fighterto sell at least two million copies– to date, they’ve sold only 1.4 million copies. While that might not seem too far off the mark, its a quarter less sales for their marquee game.
However, there have been some upsides to an overall gloomy year. Resident Evil 7 hopes to be a giant rebound for the company. It was the most downloaded downloaded PS4 demo in the first week of its release, despite only being available to PlayStation Plus subscribers. The hype for RE7 stems from the series returning to traditional horror instead of the action/horror hybrid of Resident Evil 5 and 6.
Capcom has also been riding a high from a good 2015. They collected a 19.8% increase in annual sales over a disappointing 2014. In that year, they relied heavily upon their triple-A games to carry the burden. Games like Monster Hunter X, which sold 3 million copies for the Nintendo 3DS, and Resident Evil 0 (HD Remastered) helped restore annual sales to a respectable level. You can except the same effect for Capcom if Resident Evil 7 does well. But it will be an arduous road getting there.