2018 was an extremely good year for Capcom. After some uneven years and even big games like Resident Evil 7 and Street Fighter 5 failing to make quite as large a splash as the publisher was hoping, it’s managed to hit its stride once again, largely thanks to the excellent Monster Hunter: World.
Capcom’s latest financial report, which covers nine months ending on December 31, showed the record high profits, with operating income leaping up by a whopping 92 percent, just under £93,784,698 or $122,495,100, and a net income of £427,152,321 or $557,557,000, up 28.3% year-over-year. Those very large numbers owe a lot to some very large monsters.
Monster Hunter: World was the first game in Capcom’s history to exceed 10 million units shipped, and it was also the first in the series to launch on PC, introducing a whole batch of new hunters to the venerable series. It originally launched on consoles in January, but continued to sell well throughout the year, boosted by its arrival on Steam in August. We thought it was great, so check out our Monster Hunter: World review.
Capcom also attributed the profitable year to other games, including the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection and Mega Man 11, both of which performed well, as did the Switch exclusive Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. Net sales specifically for games, which made up the greatest chunk of Capcom’s earnings, was up 55.2% from the same period in the previous fiscal year.
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see this continue. Resident Evil 2 Remake is three times as popular as Resident Evil 7 on Steam and a new expansion is coming to Monster Hunter: World later this year.
Cheers, GamesIndustry.biz.