Capcom Report a 90% Drop In Profits From Previous Year

Aug 3, 2010

Japanese gaming giants Capcom have announced their net profits for the first quater of the year at ¥216 million ($2.4 million), a whopping 90% lower than the same period for 2009, Gamespot reports. This announcement comes just days after Capcom revealed plans to increase their publishing output by capitalising upon their biggest titles, as well as potential plans to branch into outsourcing in order to stabilise company income. The poor performance is being blamed in part on the failure of titles such as Lost Planet 2, which a spokesman was quoted as saying, “underperformed its projection substantially.” In addition, a general lack of big releases was also being credited as a contributing factor to the problem.

The ‘stagnating economy’ was also being attributed to a significant percentage of the losses, due to poor exchange rates from both Europe and the United States compared to the strength of Japanese Yen. However other departments of Capcom reported more stable figures, such as the ‘Mobile Devices Division’ which reported sales of ¥680 million ($7.8 million), and a net income of ¥97 million ($1.1 million).

With this in mind the aforementioned report about their increasingly output comes as much more of a worry now. If they are becoming increasingly desperate to boost sales by churning out as a much as possible then the quality of titles to come seems dubious. Could Capcom really up their game by putting heart and soul into creating more additions to beloved franchises such as Resident Evil? Or are we looking at a future of production line, paint-by-numbers husks that they hope will sell on the principle of their respected names? I can’t help but think that these shenanigans with the Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition and Playstation Move are going to continue to add to Capcoms sales troubles. Is anyone really going to buy the game again just to use the Move feature? That being said, with titles such as Street Fighter X Tekken announced at Comic-Con 2010, there could still be hope to pull back some of those lost bucks.