Capcom saw a year-on-year gain of 52 percent in net sales for the three month period ending June 30 — but a lot of those gains were not in its core video game business, but instead thanks to shipments of a Resident Evil 6-themed pachislot machine. That’s a slot-machine like gambling device popular in Japan, if you didn’t realize.
The company’s revenue for the quarter jumped 104.9 percent, year over year, to 1.57 billion yen ($12.6 million). Profits rose 59.8 percent year-on-year for the quarter, to 2.03 billion yen ($16.3 million).
But while traditional publishers on both sides of the Pacific are trumpeting digital gains, Capcom’s online games business “remained soft” and its mobile phone game business was also “generally soft,” according to the company’s earnings release. This is not news for Capcom, which has struggled to adapt to the changing marketplace.
Its console business ticked along, though, with strong sales of Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC — an HD remake of a last-gen title, the latest to prove a success for the company and part of its strategy to pull out of a slump. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and Resident Evil titles also sold well, particularly outside of Japan, the company said.