The success of Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata have helped Capcom earn record profit for the ninth year in a row.
Capcom’s digital contents sales increased 15.2 percent year-on-year to ¥144.2bn ($914m). This segment recorded 59.07m unit sales, which is an increase of over 7.1m units from the previous year.
A key factor for this growth was the studio’s Resident Evil series, which remains popular across the board. Its latest series instalment – Resident Evil Requiem – released to critical acclaim in February (we awarded Resident Evil Requiem five stars in Eurogamer’s review, with our Matt calling it “legendary horror at an all-time high”). It quickly became the fastest-selling entry in the Resi series’s more than 30 year history and in April, a little less than two months after its initial release, Capcom celebrated Requiem passing 7m sales.
As for the future, the company is anticipating net sales of ¥210bn ($1.3bn, up 7.5 percent) and net income of ¥58bn ($367.5m, up 6.3 percent) for the next fiscal year, which ends 31st March, 2027. Should it reach this goal, it will result in 10 consecutive years of record high profit at all levels, and twelve consecutive years of 10 percent or better operating profit growth.
Capcom did not say what it expects to help drive this anticipated growth, though a new story expansion for the latest Resident Evil which will “delve deeper into the world of Requiem” is on the cards. The studio also recently celebrated a successful debut for its long-in-the-works Pragmata, which was released in April, again to critical acclaim. Our Dom awarded Pragmata four stars in their review, calling it “a proudly experimental gamble”. The game has done so well that earlier this month, chief operating officer of Capcom USA Rob Dyer appeared to suggest Pragmata could become a franchise.
Then, of course, there is still hope that Capcom will finally release some DLC for Dragon’s Dogma 2. Back in March, Capcom released some new artwork to celebrate Dragon’s Dogma 2’s second anniversary, and many believe they spotted some DLC clues tucked away within. In the background of this artwork was a seemingly new character with their back turned on the party. Their single braid and attire aren’t in the base game according to eagle-eyed fans. Meanwhile, the “2nd anniversary” banner on this artwork had several letters marked with red flags, which could be rearranged to read “2nd Arisen”.
The original Dragon’s Dogma received an expanded version of its own known as Dark Arisen, which dramatically transformed the game. So while Capcom has not announced any DLC for its second series entry yet, it wouldn’t exactly be surprising to learn it has something akin to this planned for the coming year.
