Resident Evil publisher’s full-year sales soar 46 percent with 5 million-shippers; latest PSP Monster Hunter now Capcom’s fourth best-selling game ever.
Capcom today released its results for the fiscal year ended March 31, painting a rosy picture of the past year, one in which revenues rose sharply and a record five games from the publisher achieved the million-units-shipped milestone.
The publisher posted ¥97.7 billion ($1.21 billion) in revenues for the full year, up 46 percent from the ¥66.8 billion ($830 million) it managed the year before. Its net profits were up even more significantly, with the reported ¥7.8 billion ($96 million) more than three-and-a-half times the ¥2.2 billion ($27 million) bottom line of the previous year.
Although Capcom also deals in arcade and mobile games, it still draws most of its income from the console and handheld division, which produced more titles that shipped a million copies than in any previous year. The PSP release of Monster Hunter Portable 3rd was far and away Capcom’s biggest release of the year, shipping 4.6 million copies despite only being released in Japan. That was enough to make it the company’s fourth biggest game ever in terms of units shipped, trailing only Street Fighter II on the Super Nintendo, Resident Evil 5 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and Resident Evil 2 on the PlayStation.
It’s not as if the rest of the world was unkind to Capcom, as the publisher’s next four biggest titles were all targeted at international markets. Dead Rising 2 was the next biggest hit (2.2 million units shipped), followed by Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (2 million shipped), Super Street Fighter IV (1.6 million shipped), and Lost Planet 2 (1.5 million shipped).
While Capcom considered the results “favorable,” it is not optimistic about its ability to exceed them in the current fiscal year. To start with, the publisher said the Japanese economy is currently facing “unparalleled crisis” due to the March earthquake and tsunami. (The publisher noted that 10 of its arcade locations were shut down by the quake, and to date, only three have reopened.)
“In the video game industry, a downturn in consumer confidence is feared as the consumer mindset voluntarily moves away from spending, such as entertainment and recreation, and leans excessively towards self-restraint, including refraining from going out. Accordingly, it is believed that time will be required for the domestic game market to recover.”
As a result, Capcom expects revenues to be down 12 percent to ¥86 billion ($1.1 billion) for the year ending March 31, 2012, with net profits down 10 percent to ¥7 billion ($86.9 million).
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