Dead Rising 2 Ships 2 Million, But Capcom Profits Down

Despite rising sales, the strong yen continues to hurt Capcom, which announced that although sales rose 4.7 percent in the first half of its fiscal year, its profits fell 47 percent to 3.94 billion yen ($48.5 million). Dead Rising 2 -- which Capcom said has shipped 2 million units to date -- and Super Street Fighter IV helped drive sales of 40.7 billion yen ($500.9 million) over the six months ending September 30, 2010. This is slightly above analyst estimates, and beats its own forecast of 2.9 billion yen. ($34.8 million). But in addition to the yen's appreciation, the company pointed to Dead Rising 2's delay and a "substantial" underperformance for Lost Planet 2 as the main factor weighing on its profits. Dead Rising 2, developed by Vancouver-based Blue Castle Games, ended up shipping just a few days before the end of the fiscal period. Capcom also said rising development costs contributed to the losses. Just last month, the company lowered its profit forecast for the fiscal year on these factors 18.8 percent to 6.5 billion yen ($78 million), plus a 42 percent reduction in its sales forecast to 91 billion yen ($1.09 billion), targets it didn't change alongside the new half-year results. During FY2010, the Osaka-headquartered firm earned 66.8 billion yen ($801.5 million) in revenue. A new installment in the company's popular franchise, Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, releases in December and is expected to provide a boon to the company's numbers, and looking to the next fiscal year, it's already getting a positive reception to assets it's released to the media for the promising Marvel vs. Capcom 3 reboot.