Wilds Sales Drop – WGB

Capcom has just wrapped up another fiscal quarter with some rather interesting results. Driven by the anime, Devil May Cry 5 has surpassed 10 million copies sold, but Monster Hunter Wilds has faced a surprisingly sharp drop in sales. Let’s delve into the numbers, shall we?

Q1 saw Devil May Cry 5 shifting an impressive 1.7 million copies, which Capcom says was “driven by synergies with the newly released anime series”.

The aforementioned anime debuted in 4th place on Netflix’s trending list, bringing in 5.3 million viewers and amassing 21 million hours of viewing time. Considering the length of the entire show was 3 hours and 56 minutes, that suggests the majority of people watched the whole show.

The 1.7 million sold pushes Devil May Cry 5 past the 10 million copies sold mark, and makes it Capcom’s best-selling game of the quarter. I must assume that another Devil May Cry game is in development, given this level of success.

It wasn’t just the newest Devil May Cry game hitting that coveted S rank, either. The Devil May Cry HD Collection sold another 594,00 which brings its lifetime total to approximately 2.8 million. Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition bagged 495,000 sales, giving it a lifetime total of 3.5 million.

All in all, then, that means 2.78 million copies of Devil May Cry games were sold in Q1. Capcom must be pleased with this, surely. That also brings the franchise total to 36 million units.

Tearing our eyes away from the awesomeness that is Dante, Monster Hunter had a less impressive quarter. Monster Hunter Wilds was unleashed on February 28 across multiple platforms and captured big numbers, selling 8 million copies in just the first 3 days. It hit 10 million within a month.

However, Capcom’s financial report shows that Monster Hunter Wilds Sales have dropped quite sharply. Just 477,000 copies were sold in the last quarter, bringing the lifetime total to 10.58 million. In other words, after its big first month, the game has only shifted around 580,000 copies since then, which is quite a sharp drop. Capcom itself has commented that these sales are “soft”.

There could be quite a few reasons behind this. For example, it could simply be that the vast majority of people who are interested in the game bought it within that first month, leading to the sharp decline. This is what happens with most games, which is why declines are normal.

However, in this case, the players themselves might have something to do with it. Monster Hunter Wilds holds an “Overwhelmingly negative” rating on Steam right now. The primary reason is the game’s performance and the developer’s slow response in fixing it. This has resulted in the PC player base dropping fast. It is routinely bringing in fewer players than Monster Hunter: World.

Still, despite these problems with the latest entry, the Monster Hunter series has sold 122 million units worldwide to date

Moving on, the Resident Evil franchise continues to sell very well. Resident Evil Village was Capcom’s 2nd best-selling game of the quarter, selling another 923,000 copies, which brings the lifetime total to 12.2 million. Resident Evil 4 did 706,000 (10.6m total) while Resident Evil 7 Biohazard managed 635,000 (15.45m total). Resident Evil 2 beat both Monster Hunter Wilds and Monster Hunter Rise with 482,000 copies, bringing its total to 10.89m.

That means approximately 2.7m Resident Evil games were in the last quarter. The franchise now sits at a whopping 174 million units across all of its games.

Finally, Street Fighter 6 stepped into the arena and beat another 538,000 copies out of people, giving it a new lifetime total of 5.2m.