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Net sales dip 15% at Capcom games business, but profitability up

Net sales dip 15% at Capcom games business, but profitability up

Japanese publishing giant Capcom has revealed that its net sales have dipped 15.2 per cent for the nine months ending December 31st, 2019 on the same period in 2018.

The firm made ¥40.6bn ($370m) by the end of last year, down on the ¥47.9bn ($436m) in 2018. The company cites Monster Hunter World: Iceborne as part of the reason for its sales – that title was only available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One during this period but the expansion released on PC early in January and has seemingly been popular on Steam so no doubt will be a big cash driver for Capcom's next financial quarter.

The company also called out Resident Evil 2 and Devil May Cry 5 as being strong sellers after their launches in the 2018 financial year.

Capcom says that net sales being down is due to more people buying games digitally; given that digital releases are normally more expensive than their physical counterparts, this loss is potentially down to more aggressive sales events on platforms like Steam.

The company saw a huge rise in profit, however, with Capcom hitting a 49 per cent operating margin for the end of 2019, a sizeable increase on the 31.9 per cent it landed in 2018.


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.