Things are not so rosy for Capcom as Q1 financials are out. The company reports a decrease of 17 million yen in net sales, down 6.2 % from last year, 723 million yen in operating income, down 72.9 %, ordinary income 1.151 billion yen down 47.9 %, and net income 828 million yen down 37.3 %.
Naming games, Resident Evil: Revelations and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen generally met their sales targets, but were not able to exceed them. PC games Monster Hunter Frontier G and Onimusha Soul, released for online play and for browsers respectively, had succesful launches. Capcom also released other games: an arcade game, Resident Evil5, an older mobile game, Smurfs' Village, and a pachinko game, Mario Party Fushigi no Korokoro Catcer 2, that each performed well and helped raise income.
Generally, however, the company has to report a loss for the year because they generally priced titles lower than their actual worth, in the hopes of attracting higher sales, and their mobile division underperformed in particular.
Looking forward to the next quarter, Capcom cited the upcoming release of Monster Hunter 4 this September 14 (Japan only for now), the rise in DLC sales to 1.6 billion yen, up 60 %, and ongoing reorganization of the company, to help raise the company's numbers for the financial year.
Interestingly enough, the report makes no mention of upcoming next gen title Deep Down. We do know Capcom has invested a lot into the game, given that they've pooled resources into making their Panta Rhei engine for it. While it's unlikely that they will be able to release Deep Down this financial year, you would expect them to bring it up as a potential source of lost income, but they have nothing on the financial report.
Deep Down is a huge departure and risk for the company, but in the meantime, deeper investment in PC and mobile games, as well as safer bets in consoles, is expected to help the company bounce back this year. Let's cheer for them for the next quarter.
Image is from Resident Evil Revelations.
Source: Capcom Investor Relations
