Capcom Share Price Falls on Resident Evil 7 Numbers
By all accounts (including that arbiter of gaming success, Metacritic), Resident Evil 7 is a great game. In fact, we had very nice things to say about it. However, gaming is a business, and shipping 2.5 million copies of the game in the first week was not enough to keep Capcom’s shares from sliding 3% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange today.
Historically, Resident 5 and Resident Evil 6 both shipped substantially more in the first week. Resident Evil 5 shipped 4 million, and Resident Evil 6 shipped 4.5 million copies. They are now sitting at 7.1 million total sales for 5 and 6.6 million for the sequel.
To be fair, some analysts (we mean us) might argue that gamers became disillusioned with the series primarily due to the previous two games and how they became shooters instead of survival horror. Consumers in general might not have been willing to throw money down on another “fool me once…” proposition in the latest Resident Evil.
To investors, Capcom has projected sales of 4 million units by March 31st to close out its financial year, and they will begin to report earnings on February 1st. Resident Evil 7 may be a game with long legs, so we will see what happens to the game and the choices Capcom will make about its future direction.
Jason became terminally addicted to videogames after receiving the NES at an early age. This addiction grew to include PC gaming and was cemented with the launch of the PS2. From then on, he was afflicted with epic RPGs, tense shooters, and deep strategy games, never becoming skillful, but never able to quit. He continues to play games (poorly) and share his passion for them to anyone willing to listen.
