14 DAY TRIAL // Capcom is following in the footsteps of fellow Japanese publisher and hardware maker Nintendo by announcing that it has managed to make a profit during the first quarter of the fiscal year. The former appears to be doing better, as it posted a rise in both sales and profits, while the latter saw a drop in both.
The company is stating that revenue went up to 203.9 million dollars by 23% while profit increased by 19.2% to 38.3 million. The results are even more impressive as they come in a tough economic context and are based on a relatively limited catalog of titles.
The biggest sellers are said to be Resident Evil 5, which is available for the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite for the PlayStation Portable handheld, which surpassed 3.5 million units sold in Japan.
Resident Evil 5 also managed to move about 5 million units and could become the best selling game ever for Capcom if it sold another million copies, taking the title from Street Fighter II. Other strong performers for the company have been Miles Edgeworth for the Nintendo DS and Sengoku Basara Battle Heroes for the PS.
Capcom seems to have also fallen prey to the delay syndrome that is affecting the videogaming industry. As such, it revealed that Dark Void, which is being developed by Airtight Games, would not be appearing in late 2009, as it was initially announced, but was delayed to the first quarter of 2010.
The game is set to arrive on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC and the company expects it do quite well, projecting an initial sales run of about 2 million. Probably because of the delay, Capcom has not raised its financial projections for the full year, saying that it expects a lot of competition for gamers' money in the coming months.