Capcom profit grows as Monster Hunter sells over 4 million

With the yen's depreciation and an improving Japanese economy, Capcom today reported net income up almost 16 percent for the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2014. Profit totaled 3.44 billion yen ($33.8 million) for the year (up 15.9 percent) while net sales climbed 8.6 percent to 102.2 billion yen ($1 billion).

The results were largely driven by the success of Monster Hunter 4, which "displayed explosive popularity" since its September 2013 launch. More than four million units have been sold, and the franchise in general has now exceeded 28 million units sold.

Other games that helped to boost the bottom line included Dead Rising 3 (Xbox One) and Resident Evil Revelations (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC), which each exceeded a million units sold. Capcom noted that these two titles were specifically geared toward the European and US markets, and the strategy appears to have worked. The publisher also cited "firm sales" of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (PS3, Xbox 360) and said that "projected sales were basically achieved" for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Dual Destinies (Nintendo 3DS).

Looking ahead, Capcom noted the difficulties of the console transition and the growing importance of the mobile and digital market. "As for future prospects, the transition of business models is expected to accelerate in the home video game market due to the emergence of next-generation machines with diverse networking functions in light of the rise of online games thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and such," the publisher stated. "On the other hand, we expect that the burden on software makers will increase further as the surge of development costs, due to the higher-spec hardware, will be unavoidable."

"Furthermore, with the rise of the social gaming market, which has a low barrier to entry, a major transformation is in progress as the struggle to take initiative among gaming consoles, smartphones and such intensifies further. It is expected that the overall market size will increase due to the expansion of the user base caused by the synergy between the two, and the landscape may transform rapidly due to the intensification of competition between companies," Capcom continued. "Under the circumstances of drastic changes in the business environment, Capcom will focus on increasing the corporate value of the whole group with agile management development through selection and concentration, such as by inputting management resources in focused businesses and growth areas through the review of earnings structures and business models as well as by withdrawing from unprofitable businesses."

Interestingly, the Japanese publisher also made a point to emphasize that it takes gender equality seriously. This is perhaps the first time we've seen comments such as this within the middle of a financial statement from a Japanese games company.

"Capcom is fully recognizing the importance of diversity of human resources in recent years while actively utilizing female workers and making evaluations according to performance and not based on gender, age and such. As part of such efforts, we are promoting executive positions of female employees, and so far we have two female corporate officers and 20 female employees in management positions such as general managers and senior managers," Capcom noted.