14 DAY TRIAL // Capcom, a Japanese publisher headquartered in Osaka, has announced that both sales and profits for the fiscal year that ended on March 31 were up, driven mostly by good sales in its top franchises, like Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter IV, which were released in the initial months of 2009. The company also sees a good year ahead.
Overall sales reached 91.9 billion Yen, the equivalent of about 926 million dollars, which is 10% more than in the previous period. Operating income also went up by 11.4% to reach 147.4 million dollars.
The publisher has managed to blend attention for both Eastern and Western audiences in its games, making Street Fighter IV one of the best sold fighting games of all times, with more than 2 million copies shipped and Resident Evil 5, a zombie shooter that appealed to more than 4 million gamers.
One of the franchises that has been a success mostly in Japan is Monster Hunter Freedom 2G for the PlayStation Portable, which was released in March 2008 and has until now sold 2.55 million copies. The game is set to arrive in the United States this year and Capcom is hoping that offering a demo and talking about what makes the game special will lead to Western audiences adopting the title as well.
The arcade division of Capcom has posted less impressive results. The company has stated that “Under the influence of this sluggish market, existing arcades struggled with a decreased number of visitors. This was due partially to the lack of sales-inducing games, and to the fact that the difference between home video games and arcade games has become negligible.” One of the bright spots was the success of the arcade version of Street Fighter IV, even as overall sales were flat.
For the coming year, the publisher is seeing sales going up to the equivalent of 858 million dollars, while profit is also set to go up by a similar percent, mostly because of good sales of videogames.