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PC is Monster Hunter World's second largest platform, Capcom says

PC is Monster Hunter World's second largest platform, Capcom says

PC was the second largest audience for Monster Hunter World.

That's according to Capcom's EMEA and UK marketing director Antoine Molant, who told PCGamesInsider.biz that as a result, this is an "incredibly important market" for the Japanese publishing giant. 

Molant didn't say which platform PC was second to, but given that Monster Hunter is very popular in Japan - and has done well for itself in the West with this latest release - we'd bet big money that PlayStation 4 was behind the lion's share. We'd imagine that PC comes in ahead of Xbox One, too, due to that platform's extremely low sales in Japan.

"Without getting into details, it’s the second biggest one for Monster Hunter World amongst all platforms, therefore incredibly important," Molant told PCGamesInsider.biz.

Pressed as to how Monster Hunter's PC debut helped Worlds' overall performance, Molant said that the game saw a greater level of success in Europe in particular off the back of this Steam release.

"It helped a lot boosting the overall performance," he said.

"While we always try to treat our various audiences the same way, the Monster Hunter World console versions were the lead platforms, and PC had to be released at a later date. This actually helped as the PC version has had its own window for promotion, PR, marketing. Some countries like Germany or Russia also performed extremely well on the PC front. All of this really increased our success in Europe."

And looking further into 2019, Molant describes the forthcoming Monster Hunter World Iceborne expansion as a "key" release based on the main game's success - but that's not all that Capcom has in the pipeline for this year.

"We have announced Monster Hunter World Iceborne and will have more news to share in the future. Given the success of Monster Hunter World, it will be a key project for us," he said.

"There is also more to come that I’m not allowed to discuss yet, if you want another interview with me on behalf of Capcom in the future."

Monster Hunter World launched on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in January 2018, before coming to PC in August of that year. By the end of 2018, the game had sold 12m copies.

Monster Hunter World saw the second highest concurrent player figure for a Japanese release on Steam on launch, a record previously held by Dark Souls 3.

You can read more about Capcom's PC success in our forthcoming interview with the Japanese publishing giant


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.