Capcom Q2: publisher releases no new games, makes no money shock
Capcom has released its financial results for the quarter ending September 30, and to absolutely nobody's surprise, it didn't make a lot of money.
Sales for the quarter fell 51% year-on-year to ¥16.3 billion ($151.32 million), down from ¥35.8 billion ($331.3 million).
This is not much of a shock, as re-release Ultra Street Fighter 4 was the only Capcom game to launch in the west in June-September quarter, with yet another re-release, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy HD, launching in Japan only. During the same quarter of 2013, Monster Hunter 4 dropped and sold a gazillion copies - in Japan. We're still waiting for it to come west.
"Ultra Street Fighter IV (for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC) and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy HD (for Nintendo 3DS) posted steady sales, while Dead Rising 3 (for Xbox One and PC), which sold over a million units in the previous fiscal year, continued to do well," Capcom said, without providing solid figures.
"However, no major new titles were released in this period, so sales focused on existing products. Meanwhile, the online titles Monster Hunter Frontier G series (for PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PlayStation Vita) performed solidly.
"Because small titles and repeat sales made up the majority of sales overall due to the lack of major titles in the lineup during the period under review, sales were not sufficient to offset the aforementioned downturn in Monster Hunter 4 (for Nintendo 3DS) sales, even though the digital download content supported sales growth."
As a result of this sales drop-off, Capcom posted operating losses of ¥8.25 billion ($76.7 million). That's less than it lost during the same quarter last year, though.
Capcom's holiday doesn't look much more cheerful, alas: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy is its only upcoming western release. Hopefully Monster Hunter 4, Resident Evil HD and Resident Evil: Revelations 2 will grant the publisher a boost when they drop in the west in the first half of 2015. Deep Down should also arrive in Japan at some stage next year.