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Capcom expects Lost Planet 3 and Resi Revelations to sell 1.2 million

Mentions PS4 game Deep Down too, briefly.

Capcom expects Lost Planet 3, due out 30th August in Europe, to sell 1.2 million copies.

The figure was nestled in a forward-looking document concerned with the year ahead - a compliment to yesterday's annual how-we-did paper.

Capcom also revealed that it wants Resident Evil Revelations, due out 24th May in Europe, to shift 1.2 million units as well.

Modest forecasts, but there are higher hopes for gangbusters series Monster Hunter and Monster Hunter 4 on 3DS, which Capcom believes will shift a meaty 4 million units this summer in Japan and other Asian countries alone.

Capcom also mentioned its in-development PlayStation 4 game Deep Down, revealed at Sony's PS4 extravaganza earlier this year. And very nice it looked too, like a mix between Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls.

"Development is proceeding on Deep Down, a new title for PlayStation 4," was Capcom's robotic remark.

Cover image for YouTube videoCapcom on PlayStation 4 - Deep Down (working title) and Panta Rhei engine revealed

The only other thing Capcom said about next-generation consoles was in relation to becoming "more competitive overseas by deepening global ties between development and marketing". Bullet point one: "Establish a new organisational framework for next-generation game hardware." End.

There was mention of Ace Attorney 5 and Sengoku Basara 4 launching in Japan as well.

This time next year, Capcom expects sales to be roughly the same but profits to be more than double - up to 6.8 billion yen (£44 million). And it plans to do this by releasing fewer games than ever, 30, compared to 46 last year and 68 the year before.

Wait, what? Yes: fewer better games that are elongated and bolstered by DLC. Capcom hopes to "raise development efficiency and quality by producing more titles internally", too - something we've heard a bit about this before. That should shorten development times as well, which will save a few pounds.

Capcom is also keen to do more download-only releases, and "beef up" it's online gaming business, with the end goal of making it attractive outside of Japan - the key title here being PC MMO Monster Hunter Frontier G. No word on that coming West, but a Chinese beta is planned for this year.

Capcom wheeled out some franchise sales as well, strongest first:

  • Resident Evil series: 56 million units
  • Street Fighter series: 34 million units
  • Monster Hunter series: 23 million units
  • Devil May Cry series: 12 million units
  • Dead Rising series: 5.4 million units
  • Lost Planet series: 4.9 million units

But it's not just those series Capcom will rely upon. One of Capcom's high points in its financials yesterday was new IP Dragon's Dogma becoming a "million seller", and Deep Down is a new idea too. "Rather than relying solely on our major game titles," Capcom said, "we create original content every year to establish new sources of growth." That sounds good to me.