what happened with Capcom that they have so little money that they can't develop projects by themselves anymore? Monster Hunter is a huge money maker with cheap costs because they're handheld titles. and while RE have their haters within fans, they have steady output and I assume most of them are at least break even or making some profits.
I can't seem to recall a huge financial bomb by Capcom that lead them to such state. I think Squenix have bigger bomb than Capcom last gen and they still greenlighting projects left and right on their own.
the only thing I seem to recall is Capcom investing quite a bit of money for their mobile games division. is that a huge failure that left Capcom in this state?
The failed mobile development division, RE6 disappointing, SF x T flopping really hard - these all sorta came right around the same time as one another. Monster Hunter does real well for them, make no mistake about that. I think MHX did something to the effect of 4 million as of the beginning of this year? Yeah, MH is big for them.
At their lowest point, Capcom placed itself into a business position where they could've potentially been bought out. Since then, they've focused on excepting funded development deals for their projects or IP for 1st party, continued focusing on MH alongside Nintendo while also signing deals with the other 1st party.
Capcom is only pulling this off because they hold the keys to very valuable franchises to key markets that 1st-party likes to court to their platforms. Notice that no deals are being signed for a new IP from Capcom. As for why they'll continue doing this - well, honestly, there is no reason not to. Some of Capcom's most profitable era's were during phases where some form of co-publishing between them & the platform owner was being conducted. Its heavily mitigating risk on their end.
They're not in a strong position at all. A strong position would mean them not having to rely on others for their lights to stay on, which is where they are now. If they cannot fund their most successful franchise, Capcom is in MAJOR trouble, much more than anyone thinks. Why? Because it means everything new has to be funded by outside parties. That only works for so long.
At some point the money's gonna run out.
Dude, you need to look into Capcom before you keep making yourself look silly as to their actual financial situation. They posted profits across the board last fiscal year. They are up 15% minimum in every sector, and are looking to further increase their digital portfolio specifically because its done so well this year, meaning they are going to focus less on retail releases. All of this is because of their increased business practices that mitigate risk (i.e. - signing development deals with 1st party publishers, selling digital titles), as well as peddling their old library across any digital store that can support them.
if this were two or three years ago, when Capcom had basically put itself up for sale (potentially), then yes, i'd whole heartedly agree with you. But they are doing 'ok' now. Is it the best they've ever done? No, absolutely not. But they have definitely recovered, and its thanks specifically to low-risk business partnerships they've developed with 1st party publishers. A strong position does not have to be defined as a publisher being able to wholly fund & release their own projects. There are plenty of ways to sustain a business that don't involve gambling everything on your latest major retail release. In fact, Capcom's current development/partnership method is almost an exact replica of how game's publishing worked in the 90s/early 2000s. It works for them & their business.
