PC Market Increasingly Important for Capcom; Company Celebrates Record Game Sales
With the release of Resident Evil Village and games from the Monster Hunter series, Capcom is celebrating the best opening of a financial year in its history. The Japanese have noticed the growing demand for PC titles and do not intend to ignore this market segment.
The beginning of fiscal year lasting from the April 1 proved to be historic for Capcom - thanks to the successful launch of Monster Hunter: Rise (March 26) and Resident Evil Village (May 7) the Japanese company recorded the best first quarter ever. Thanks to documents summarizing the period from April 1 to June 30, we got to know the sales data of these titles, but also learned something about the company's current policy. It turns out that Capcom has noticed a growing demand for PC titles and intends to make efforts to ensure that subsequent games will be released both on desktops and on consoles.
This move is due primarily to the desire to increase the potential user base. Fans of PC gaming will certainly be pleased with the thought that their platform will not be dismissed. While the demand for console versions of Capcom's games in the previous fiscal year was greater compared to the interest in their PC editions, the difference was said to be smaller than in previous years. Moreover, the company recognized the growing importance of this segment in both existing and emerging markets.
Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin and Monster Hunter: Rise can be considered as precursors to the changes. The former was released on PC and Switch, while the latter is only available on Nintendo's console for the moment, but is expected to come out for PC next year as well. Both are selling well, especially MH: Rise which is still gaining popularity despite being released back in March. However, Capcom is also satisfied with the initial financial results of Wings of Ruin, released on July 9, and the eighth installment of Resident Evil, which by the end of June had sold about 4.5 million copies. In total, in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, the company sold 13.3 million copies of video games, which enabled it to record an increase of 44.6% over the same period in the previous twelve months.
What influenced such good results may be the fact that Japanese work efficiency was not affected too much by the coronavirus pandemic. The company has adjusted the working hours of its staff to the new security rules, but this did not affect the development of individual titles. According to Capcom, the changing epidemiological situation is also irrelevant to the popularity of the franchise, because their recipients are mainly "core" and not "casual" players.
