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Capcom has released its latest financial report for the nine months ending December 2016, but while net sales and operating income have both fallen for the company year-on-year, accelerated digital sales and higher sales of flagship software titles have given Capcom’s consumer business its first market expansion in four years.
Capcom reported that net sales had fallen 6.2 per cent year-on-year to 53.5bn, and that operating income was down 51.7 per cent year-on-year to 5.1bn. According to the report, this was due to a lack of major title compared to the same period last year and a decrease in licensing revenue.
However, there was good news to be found in Capcom’s consumer business, as both packaged and digital download sales increased compared to last year, driving a net sales growth of 19.6 per cent.
Digital download sales have accelerated in the US and Europe over the last nine months, increasing 21.1 per cent to 6.1m units compared to digital download sales the previous year. Packaged sales were also up 19.1 per cent, and together packaged and full-game download sales totalled 15m units. This is an increase of 15.4 per cent year-on-year.
As for individual game performances, Street Fighter V fell short of Capcom’s sales projections, with the title finally hitting 1.4m units after ten months on the market. The bulk of those sales, Capcom notes, were overseas rather than in Japan, but the company still plans to update the game regularly over the next fiscal year.
Resident Evil Revelations 2, meanwhile, "maintained brisk sales" at 850,000 units, and Dead Rising 4, which released in December, hit 700,000 units. Monster Hunter X (known as Monster Hunter Generations in the UK) surpassed its initial projections of 2.5m units to sell 3.3m units, making a significant contribution to Capcom’s earnings.
Capcom’s Resident Evil HD re-masters also did well for the company over the last nine months, with Resident Evil 0 HD selling 800,000 units.
As for the next fiscal year, you can expect more HD remasters to appear as digital downloads, as well as a new Monster Hunter title. Capcom also spoke about its general release cycle, stating it plans to release a new title within each popular franchise every 2.5 years.
