‘Tis the season for major publishers to release yearly financials. We saw EA wave its impressive numbers in the air earlier this week, and now, Capcom is here to both review the past and the future. Most importantly, the Japanese company has posted sales guidance for its most-anticipated, biggest-budget releases of the current business year ending March 31, 2014.
First, let’s start with the biggest of them all. Monster Hunter 4, which is arriving in Japan this summer, is expected to sell 2.8 million units by next April. This is an exclusive for Nintendo’s 3DS, and has yet to receive an official launch date for the U.S. Resident Evil: Revelations, on the other hand, is set to sell 1.2 million units between launch at the end of this month and March 31. This is a re-release of a 2012 3DS game.
Lastly, the oft-delayed Lost Planet 3, which is being developed by Spark Unlimited, hopes to make it to the 1.2 million mark across all platforms. With the poor critical reception of the second game in this franchise, that may be a difficult number to reach.
Capcom hasn’t exactly been the best predictor of sales over the past few years. Last month, the company had to lower sales projections for some of its most-recognizable franchises due to "delayed response to the expanding digital contents market" and "insufficient coordination between the marketing and game development divisions in overseas markets.” Whether or not the publisher/developer learned its lesson will only be known after the release of the three major games discussed earlier.
