Capcom Falters As Resident Evil 7 and Monster Hunter XX Come in Below Expectations

Capcom announced its financial earnings report for the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2017, but the news wasn't amazing. Net sales and revenue were up for the company year-over-year, but more importantly, all of the publisher's major releases missed expectations.

Original estimates for the fiscal year saw Resident Evil 7 selling 4 million copies, alongside Monster Hunter XX and Dead Rising 4 with 2 million sold each. Instead, Resident Evil 7 came in around 3.5 million copies sold, Monster Hunter XX sold 1.7 million on 3DS, and Dead Rising 4 landed somewhere below 1 million units. For Resident Evil 7 and Monster Hunter XX, Capcom fell a bit short of expectations, but Dead Rising 4 was a major miss for the company.

"Resident Evil 7 biohazard gave an overall solid performance, while Monster Hunter XX is off to a promising start following its March 2017 release," said the company in its earnings release. "On the other hand, Dead Rising 4 and Monster Hunter Stories underperformed."

In addition, Street Fighter V only moved another 100,000 units during the quarter, with sales coming in at 1.6 million in total.

In the coming fiscal year, Capcom has Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers, Great Ace Attorney 2, and additional Street Fighter V content planned for release. Hopefully, the company has a strong E3 with a host of new, exciting titles.

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#1 Luna-Moth A year ago

I'm not too surprised really. I mean Mega Man isn't even a lynchpin anymore! It's kind of weird but natural I guess to see big companies of yesterday struggle to stay relevant today. It's all very interesting.

#2 SIGGYZtar A year ago

@Luna-Moth Especially when the competition on platforms easily has millions of players at any one time. I just saw the Famitsu sales numbers and they will never break 1 million on release weekend. http://kotaku.com/fire-emblem-echoes-was-the-biggest-selling-game-in-japa-1794700615 People are still playing games, but how they do it isn't relevant as much.

#3 SuperShinobi A year ago

Resident Evil 6 sold 6.5M copies, so unless RE7 sales are going to have some legs, Capcom may rethink the new direction. Even though I was one of the few who admitted to liking RE6, I'm hoping that the next one will be similar to RE7, because it's so awesome in VR.

I'm sure Dead Rising sales would more than double if Capcom released it on the PS4. MS is probably paying them to keep it on Xbox and PC, so that may have helped to offset some of the sales underperformance.

#4 Outrider A year ago

@SuperShinobi I do think Resident Evil 6 can provide some real enjoyment, though it's a definitely a huge mess (and a misstep). I haven't played RE7 yet but I really need to.

I wonder how if players really were turned off by RE7's apparent shift in gameplay (even if it sounds like it was mainly just the camera). I'd still love to see Capcom find a happy medium between puzzle, horror, survival, and action like the original RE games.

#5 Meho A year ago

I mean... come one, Resident Evil 7 literally came out four months ago. Yes, I know the industry tends to favour the launch window sales but selling 3.5 million copies in four months in one of the toughest, strongest first thirds of a year in living memory, especially after almost universally panned RE6... that a pretty good achievement.

#6 brionfoulke91 A year ago

It's not about whether Resident Evil was a good achievement or not... these games are really expensive to make. If they don't sell enough, they don't make enough money for it to be worth it. This is exactly the same problem Konami was facing, and exactly why mid-tier devs have mostly died off. Games have become too expensive.

I think the general public has to share some of the blame on this. I'm specifically talking about all the tech people who trash anything that doesn't live up to 1080p and 60FPS, and look "next-gen" enough. We've become too spoiled when it comes to graphics, and are expectations are too high. It's created unreasonable expectations for developers to live up to.Edited April 2017 by brionfoulke91

#7 Octopumpkin A year ago

I don't know if it's true for anybody else, but I cancelled my Resident Evil 7 preorder to save for the Nintendo Switch.

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#8 KaiserWarrior A year ago

Very disappointing to see RE7 and MHXX missing their targets. That means Capcom may rethink those directions, and in both cases they were exciting directions for those series to be going in. A real shame.

Though honestly... it's just more damning evidence, particularly in the case of RE7, that modern big-budget game development just isn't sustainable. When a game is off-target when it doesn't move 4 million units in a couple of months, the system's just not workable. The last several years have proven, beyond any doubt, that your game does not have to have top-shelf graphics to do well. I really, really wish more of the traditional studios would take that lesson to heart and make stuff with slightly less graphical bling so that they don't have to sell 5 million copies in the first month to turn a profit.

#9 Thetick A year ago

I think there are a lot of backlogs out there and also a lot of games which still go strong online a long time after release. a game must do something special to get that initial boost. Most people think, "oh well. Plenty to do, i'll get it on a sale sometimes."

#10 chilon A year ago

SFV on PC is £40 for only 16 characters, then new characters cost £4 each. It's too expensive, even when it was on sale for £20 it was still too expensive. I love SF4 and would love to buy SFV at a fair price. Maybe the base game would be worth more if the per-character price wasn't so high.

#11 Meho A year ago

@brionfoulke91 I understand what you're saying. My point is, Capcom's targets seem to be perhaps a little smugly optimistic. Selling 3.5 million in such a busy quarter is actually pretty good and Capcom will probably make solid money on it if they keep marketing it like a great game it is. I am actually only now getting to play it (had to complete several other games) and it's impressive. so I am sure it can easily outsell RE6 if they keep at it.

As for Monster Hunter, the series was never a blockbuster in the west. it was always more of a cult title so... I guess an overoptimistic target here as well. But again, therse games can and will have longer sales tails if Capcom keeps at it.

#12 brionfoulke91 A year ago

@KaiserWarrior Well I, for one, really didn't like the direction of RE7 and I sincerely hope they abandon it, going forward with the series. It was really quite far away from what made the original RE games good, IMO. I think the move to try to accomdate the VR market compromised the game. If the RE series keeps going in that direction it's dead to me, so I hope it can somehow survive and return to it's roots.

#13 presidentcamacho A year ago

Nothing in the RE series is likely to hit 5 and 6's numbers anytime soon, no matter how great the game is. Those were released at a time when the "bro gamers" weren't as 100% locked into buying only Call of Battlefield and the big sports games. That sort of customer isn't coming back.