Capcom simply had its best-ever 12 months

Capcom’s enterprise is videogames, and enterprise is sweet: Higher, in actual fact, than it is ever been. The Japanese big revealed its end-year outcomes on Wednesday, overlaying the monetary 12 months that ended on March 31, 2023, and this has been one of the best 12 months within the venerable writer’s historical past (thanks, VGC (opens in new tab)). 

Capcom offered 41.7 million video games over the 12 months, a giant soar from the 32.6 million it managed the 12 months prior, and that is its new file for video games offered in a single 12 months. This in flip led to file excessive revenue, in addition to its tenth straight 12 months of earnings development, and main contributors have been Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak (5.45 million items) and Resident Evil 4 (3.75 million, although keep in mind on this context that’s one week’s gross sales).

That is nonetheless solely 9 million-ish video games although, and Capcom says many of the the rest is catalogue titles (i.e. video games not launched on this monetary 12 months) and unfold throughout the Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Satan Could Cry collection. It says this accounts for 29.3 million sport gross sales complete, and the largest contributors have been Monster Hunter Rise (3.7 million), Resident Evil 2 (2.25 million) and Resident Evil 3 (1.95 million).

12.4 million of the gross sales have been new titles. In addition to Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak and Resident Evil 4, Capcom’s different titles over this era included a brand new gold version of Resident Evil Village, Capcom Preventing Assortment, and the Mega Man: Battle Community Legacy Assortment. The purchases have been overwhelmingly digital, accounting for slightly below 90% of gross sales.

After the outcomes have been revealed, Capcom’s share value unsurprisingly went via the roof and hit an all-time excessive of 5380 Japanese yen per share (simply over $40). It is settled right down to extra like 5270 JPY on the time of writing, although that is nonetheless nicely above the place it was final week.

Capcom is feeling bullish and says it reckons it will possibly beat these new information within the present monetary 12 months. Little question Resident Evil 4 will proceed to contribute wholesome numbers, however the massive performers for this 12 months will have to be June’s Road Fighter 6 (which Capcom has set an especially formidable goal of 10 million gross sales) and Exoprimal in July.

Capcom felt prefer it had a little bit of a wobble within the late 2000s, with some massive initiatives rising half-baked and its then-strategy of outsourcing IP to western studios not at all times assembly with success. Maybe the emblematic title of this period was Resident Evil 6, a sport the place within the absence of recent concepts Capcom packed it with a lot stuff it principally topples over. The 2010s onwards, nevertheless, noticed the corporate re-focus on its core titles: rebooting Resident Evil and starting the remake undertaking, the sensible Monster Hunter World and Rise, and the finally wonderful Road Fighter V. These outcomes present one factor: Should you make high-quality video games, the viewers is now larger than ever.