Capcom first-half down sharply on tough comparison

Capcom today reported its financial results for the first half of its fiscal year (April 1 through September 30), showing steep declines attributed to a difficult comparison against a strong first half in 2021.

The first-half numbers

Revenue: ¥49.1 billion (down 30% year-on-year)
Operating income: ¥21.9 billion (down 24%)
Net income: ¥16.1 billion (down 27%)

The highlights

Capcom blamed its declines on a tough comparison to the previous year's first half, when it launched Resident Evil Village and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin.

By comparison, this year's biggest launch of the first half was the PC and Switch release Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, a premium expansion to Monster Hunter: Rise that sold 4.4 million copies.

The original Monster Hunter Rise has also sold 11 million copies to date, Capcom announced, which puts it on the verge of overtaking Resident Evil 7 to be the publisher's second best-selling title ever, trailing only Monster Hunter World.

Despite the drop in revenues, Capcom actually sold more copies of its games, with the digital contents business reporting unit sales up 8% to 21.3 million.

The rest of Capcom's business – arcade operations and other business category – are collectively only about half the size of the digital contents business, but fared better relative to last year's results.

Thanks to relaxing pandemic restrictions, the arcade operations division saw revenues up 30% year-over-year while operating income was more than nine times higher than in the previous year's first half.

Meanwhile, Capcom's other business saw the debut of the live-action Resident Evil series on Netflix, but posted revenues down 9% year-over-year, with operating income down 8%.