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Why is Capcom Failing to Turn Profit?

Why is Capcom Failing to Turn Profit?

A recent earnings report showed that Capcom’s financial performance has been suffering quite a bit in recent days. Their earnings are down 51.4 percent, and their profits were down 39.9 percent. When you look at just Capcom’s video game unit (they have a lot of other units like merchandise, arcade operations, and so forth), revenue was down 64.1 percent which is even worse! In short, Capcom may be spending less money, but they are also making significantly less money.

So why is Capcom not doing so hot? Well the company attributes it to having released no major titles between April 1 st 2014 to September 30 th , 2014, and they may be right. The big titles that we saw at this year’s E3 at the Capcom booth were Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy , a remake, and Dead Rising 3 for the PC, a port. The other biggest title was Ultra Street Fighter IV which had already come out by that point, and was also just a balance patch. In short, at the biggest gaming event of the year Capcom had nothing to show.

Part of this is because of Capcom’s policy of what makes a game a success. If a game does not sell at least two million titles, Capcom won’t even think of a sequel. As a result, one bad title in any franchise kills it, and thus we are seeing numerous titles, like Darkstalkers, Mega Man, and more being culled from the Capcom line-up.

In the future, Capcom is scheduled to release Deep Down as well as Resident Evil: Revelations 2 . However, Deep Down is the ONLY new title they have cooking, with RE: Revelations 2 basically being a remake. Remember, this is Capcom we are talking about, one of the big Japanese publishers that ruled third party publishing in the days of the NES, SNES, PlayStation, and more.

So what is Capcom to do? Well, in my opinion Capcom would be well served to look at some of their older IPs. If a title doesn’t sell 2 million, it might not want to get a sequel right away, but you bet your ass a new Mega Man title would sell like hotcakes as soon as it hit store shelves, especially with Mega Man being featured in the new Smash Brothers .

Why is Capcom Failing to Turn Profit?

Capcom also needs to try and brand out into some new IPs as well. It feels like the only thing they have been doing recently is rehashing and remaking their old IPs. No true sequels and no true new games have been made. Perhaps some of the last truly new Capcom games were DMC, Resident Evil 6, and Dead Rising 3 , all of which were sequels, and all of which were received kind of lukewarmly. If Capcom is going to capture the eye of the gaming audience, they need to do SOMETHING new. Deep Down , while new, is just a free to play game that looks a lot like Dragon’s Dogma or Dark Souls so it might be interesting but they are going to have to do a little better than that in my opinion.

What do you think? Why do you think Capcom is seeing such a loss in profits? What do you think they can do to come back? Let us know in the comments.

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