This Week In Japanese News: From RE: Chronicles HD To Misty Pink

[Gamasutra rounds up recent reports on the Japanese games industry from local news site Andriasang.com, a leading destination for English-language news on Japan's game industry.] In our latest round-up of Japanese game industry news not previously reported on Gamasutra, we look at how Nintendo 3DS' price drop has attracted more children and female buyers, Capcom's software sales expectations for the fiscal year, Resident Evil Chronicles HD Selection for PS3, and more. Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Selection Announced for PlayStation 3 Capcom announced that it will release Resident Evil: Chronicles HD Selection, a compilation PlayStation 3 game that will include Wii-exclusive on-rail shooters Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles and Darkside Chronicles, which released in 2007 and 2009 respectively. The publisher has not revealed a Japanese release date or plans to bring the PS3 version to the West yet, but at a Resident Evil 15-year anniversary event today the company said that the conversions will feature support for its Move motion-sensing controller. 3DS Price Drop Resulted In Increases In Child And Female Audience At the company's investors meeting yesterday, Nintendo president and CEO Saoturi Iwata said that more children are purchasing the Nintendo 3DS since the system's price drop two months ago, according to data pulled from its Club Nintendo service and other sources. Girls in particular appear to be buying the portable more, as data from Club Nintendo, which tends to have more participation from males, showed that over 75 percent of consumers are picking up the Misty Pink variation of the 3DS are females. And while consumers typically purchase The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D when they buy other 3DS color models, with Misty Pink -- which launched in Japan two weeks ago and is coming to Europe -- the most popular game is Nintendogs + Cats. Capcom Expects 1.2 Million Sales For Monster Hunter 3DS Capcom expects to sell 1.2 million copies of Monster Hunter Tri-G for 3DS in Japan in the remainder of its current fiscal year (ending March 2012). The game releases in that country on December 10 -- so far the publisher hasn't said whether it will release the game overseas. Monster Hunter Tri-G is the latest entry for what has become one of the biggest franchises for Capcom in recent years. The series' last iteration, Monster Hunter 3rd HD Version for PS3, has sold around 450,000 copies in Japan since releasing in late August. As for Xbox 360/PS3 forecasts for Japan, the company predicts that Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and Street Fighter x Tekken will both sell 2 million copies apiece, and that Dragon's Dogma will sell 1.5 million copies when those hit next year. Marvelous Raises Earnings Expectations Due to Senran Kagura and Vanillaware Marvelous AQL increased its midterm and annual earnings forecasts due to stronger than expected sales of recent 3DS and PSP releases. The company bumped its 2.5 billion yen ($32 million) sales predictions to now 2.8 billion yen ($36 million) for the April-to-September period. It has also upgraded its previously estimated 160 million yen ($2 million) operating loss to a 30 million yen ($384,000) operating gain, and its 185 million yen ($2.4 million) net loss to a 192 million yen ($2.5 million) net gain thanks to the portable software windfall. The games that the publisher cited for the increased sales are the Tamsoft's risque beat'em up Senran Kagura on 3DS and Vanillaware's Grand Knights History on PSP, both of which are available only in Japan, though the latter is coming to North America courtesy of Xseed. [This story was written with permission using material from Andriasang.com, a leading destination for English-language news on Japan's game industry.]