The success of both Devil May Cry 5 and Resident Evil 2 has reinvigorated Capcom. And the Japanese video game company is quick to take advantage.
In its latest financial report, the company reported to investors that it plans on reviving IPs that are gathering dust. To do this, Capcom plans on investing in talented developers to properly exploit the intellectual properties.
However, it doesn’t mean that the company will just jump on the money train. One of its core philosophies is to make sure to release only high-quality games.
For instance, Capcom plans on hiring more than 2,500 developers from now until 2021.
Certainly, Capcom can leverage on its core titles like Street Fighter, Mega Man, Marvel Vs. Capcom for IP resurgence.
But Capcom CEO Haruhiro Tsujimoto told Toyokaizei that revisiting dormant IPs is easier said than done. For instance, they don’t have enough manpower to develop titles as fast as they want. And they are not just focused on restoring the dormant IPs. They also need to develop new titles out of existing titles or create “completely new titles.”
DMC 5 and Resident Evil 2 helped propel Capcom as a serious player after a period of laggardness. For instance, Resident Evil 2 remake shipped four million copies in the first quarter of 2019. For the same period, Devil May Cry 5 shipped two million copies.
The popularity of the two titles spilled over to Monster Hunter: World, which shipped 600,000 copies in Q1.
As a result, Capcom enjoyed the windfall as the Digital Contents division registered an 11% increase in revenues. Year-on-year figures saw the windfall at $749.8 million or about 83 billion yen. It also increased the operating income of the company to $210.79 million or about 24 billion yen.
Fans should get excited about this development. One title that could benefit from the plan to revive dormant IPs is the Dino Crisis series. Remember that the last title, Dino Crisis 3, was released way back in 2003. And fans are anticipating a new update.
The financial report did not provide any titles that could possibly undergo a resurgence. For now, fans can only speculate about the possible games that will undergo a remake.
The Japanese company has not revealed any details of any games on the pipeline. The only announcement was for the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. The title, an expansion of Monster Hunter World, has a planned release date of January 2020.
