Revenue and Profit Have Grown for 11 Consecutive Years—Why Are Capcom's Reheated Dishes Becoming More and More Popular?

In early 2026, Capcom, the Japanese publisher of the Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter series, continued to defy the trend, achieving unprecedented revenue and operating profit growth for 11 consecutive years. Such an outstanding “report card” in the traditional AAA game sector is almost unimaginable.

Capcom’s recent third-quarter financial report for fiscal year 2026 confirms that the company’s performance momentum is accelerating, with operating profit soaring 75% year-over-year in that quarter. To understand Capcom’s current situation, we must discuss the stability of its core strategy. Over the past two years, the global gaming industry has been plagued by large-scale layoffs, project budget overruns, and studio closures, yet Capcom has entered its own golden age.

As a traditional publisher, how does Capcom maintain growth in a market full of uncertainties and turbulence? I will share some insights in this article and explore this topic with everyone. At the same time, we will examine potential risks within Capcom’s existing strategy.

Growth Engine: The “Big Three”

In recent years, Capcom’s success can largely be attributed to its product strategy centered around the “Big Three” series—Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter—and the perfect execution of this strategy, combining both new and old titles.

Since the debut of the first Resident Evil game in the early 1990s, the series has maintained a consistently high standard, reaching its peak in both contribution to Capcom’s performance and cultural influence. By alternating between releasing new canonical sequels and high-quality remakes, Capcom has greatly shortened the gap between game releases, ensuring that Resident Evil fans don’t have to wait many years for new titles.

Almost every 12–18 months, Capcom releases a high-quality Resident Evil game, satisfying player demand while maintaining the series’ overall popularity. Crucially, all Resident Evil games are developed using Capcom’s proprietary RE Engine, allowing the development team to reuse assets, improve efficiency, and streamline the process. Compared to studios starting from scratch, this approach significantly reduces costs and enables Capcom to develop games more quickly.

On the 30th anniversary of the Resident Evil series, Capcom launched the highly anticipated ninth mainline installment, Resident Evil: Village, on February 27 for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. Building on the huge success of Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023) and the unprecedented hype before its release—including winning four awards at the 2025 Cologne International Game Show for “Best Visual Effects,” “Best Sound,” “Most Epic,” and “Best PlayStation Game”—Resident Evil: Village quickly became a hit, selling an astonishing 5 million copies worldwide in just six days (according to Capcom’s official announcement on March 4).

By comparison, Resident Evil 4 Remake is the second-fastest-selling game in the series, taking over three months to reach 5 million copies sold.

The rapid global popularity of Resident Evil: Village is mainly due to two reasons. First, it features an innovative dual-protagonist setup: Leon’s chapters focus on fast-paced action gameplay, while Grace’s chapters emphasize survival horror experiences. This balance effectively caters to both horror and action fans, broadening the game’s audience. Second, supported by Capcom’s RE Engine, Resident Evil: Village delivers highly realistic graphics across all platforms. To date, the Resident Evil series has sold over 183 million copies in total.

Another flagship title, Monster Hunter: Wildlands, also performed phenomenally. Released in late February 2025, it surpassed 11 million copies sold by the end of that year and became one of Capcom’s revenue pillars for the fiscal year. Additionally, Street Fighter 6 has maintained its leading position in fighting games, attracting a dedicated core fanbase and regularly hosting eSports tournaments, demonstrating stable and reliable profitability.

Beyond new major titles, sales of older games have also significantly boosted Capcom’s performance. In the first three quarters of FY2026, Capcom’s digital content division sold a total of 34.64 million copies, with 33.39 million from titles released in the previous fiscal year—accounting for 96%. In the same period last year, sales of older Capcom titles were 28.61 million copies.

Whenever Capcom announces new titles like Monster Hunter: Wildlands or Resident Evil: Village, it cleverly leverages the ensuing hype to boost sales of older titles in the same series. For example, the hype around Resident Evil: Village directly increased sales of Resident Evil 4 Remake and Resident Evil Village. Similarly, Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak saw sales surges driven by the popularity of Monster Hunter: Wildlands. Even Street Fighter 6 has surpassed 6 million copies sold globally by continuously launching on new hardware (such as the Switch 2 version launched last June) and hosting eSports events.

Sales of digital games incur almost no variable costs, and the revenue can be directly converted into profit. As a result, the sales boom of older titles has helped Capcom’s digital content division achieve a net sales of $465 million and an operating profit of $292 million (up 57.5% year-over-year). Based on this, Capcom’s consolidated net sales reached approximately $730 million. This may explain why, despite no new major releases last quarter, Capcom still posted an operating profit of nearly $344 million, a 75.1% increase year-over-year.

In short, Capcom is massively selling low-cost digital versions of older games, greatly boosting its profit margins.

Growth Challenges: What Went Wrong?

Despite continuous growth, a concerning phenomenon is that Capcom seems to be alienating its most important audience: PC gamers. Although PC sales account for over 50% of Capcom’s digital sales, many of the company’s recent major PC releases have been plagued by technical issues. For example, the launch of DmC2 was criticized for poor CPU optimization, and Monster Hunter: Wildlands received overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam, with recent player reviews dropping to “mostly negative.” Feedback indicates that even high-end PC users often encounter random frame drops, stuttering, and over-reliance on AI frame generation to meet basic performance standards.

These signs suggest that Capcom has not sufficiently optimized RE Engine for the PC ecosystem. This could lead to a sharp decline in player goodwill and pose a real threat to future digital pre-sales. However, there are signs of improvement: on Steam, Resident Evil: Village has received widespread praise (player review score of 96%) for its quality and performance optimization, indicating that Capcom is beginning to take PC platform issues more seriously.

Additionally, Capcom has attempted to chase industry trends by developing new IPs, but most efforts have backfired—Exoprimal is a prime example of failure.

Exoprimal, a dinosaur mech-themed PvPvE multiplayer shooter released in July 2023, was a complete failure. The game suffered from many flaws, including confusing progression systems (players had to repeatedly complete early missions), lack of engaging PvE content, a high price of $60, and in-game purchases like battle passes. These factors caused rapid player attrition within months of launch. Soon after, Capcom decided to cease further development of content for Exoprimal, seemingly recognizing that its strength lies in traditional single-player games and that online service games should not be over-invested in. Meanwhile, smaller, niche new IPs have struggled to make a significant financial impact, further confirming that Capcom’s performance still heavily relies on its classic IPs.

Deepening Focus on Classics

Looking ahead to 2026, Capcom’s growth momentum underscores the importance of strategic focus. The failure of Exoprimal and the negative reviews of several PC ports have made Capcom realize that providing players with well-crafted, legendary IP-based traditional gaming experiences is the most effective way to boost performance.

Currently, Capcom is reducing spending on service-based games and refocusing on developing titles around mature IPs. To protect its huge profits, Capcom will invest more in proven strategies—alternating releases of the “Big Three” series, expanding their influence on new platforms, and broadening their audiences, while selling digital versions of older titles at “fire sale” prices to generate long-tail revenue.

Notably, Capcom’s 2026 game release schedule suggests that the company intends to apply this approach to more IPs and adopt a broader, more diversified strategy. By launching derivative titles like Monster Hunter Stories 3: Shadows of the Past, Capcom aims to expand its core IP’s audience. Meanwhile, it is cautiously developing new IPs, such as the sci-fi adventure Pragmata scheduled for release in April. Additionally, Capcom plans to revisit its rich IP portfolio, including releasing the first new Ghosts ’n Goblins game in nearly 20 years, titled Ghosts ’n Goblins: Sword of the Doomed.

If Capcom can resolve the technical issues on PC—similar to what it achieved with Resident Evil: Village—its recent development trajectory remains very promising. However, no company’s performance can grow forever in a straight line. While Capcom’s annual results continue to climb, it may become difficult to sustain these record-breaking years in the future. Still, for Capcom, maintaining long-term resilience is more important than just keeping growth going. The company has already proven that deep engagement with its classic IPs can bring substantial returns: by developing new titles around its flagship IPs, creating new IPs, and strategically reviving old ones, Capcom is consolidating its position as a gaming industry giant and building strength to weather any economic cycle.