Capcom hopes for handheld hits

TOKYO--In its latest company profile report, Capcom has disclosed it plans to release a total of 10 games for the PlayStation Portable and three for the Nintendo DS during the current business year started April 1, 2005. Five of these games have already been announced, and the PSP editions of Viewtiful Joe and Devil May Cry could see the light of day before 2006. Further information should become available as the September Tokyo Game Show approaches.

Capcom plans to sell 1.45 million PSP games during this business year, which is nearly 10 times the volume it sold by the end of March 2005. Those sales were of the company's only current PSP offering, Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower. The game sold a total of 150,000 copies by April 1, 2005.

With only three games in development for the DS, it seems clear that Capcom has decided to favor the PSP in its plans for the future. All three of Capcom's upcoming DS games have already been announced: Viewtiful Joe DS, Mega Man Battle Network, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Capcom plans to sell half a million DS games during the current business year. These three titles will be the first offerings for the DS from Capcom.

The company expects a 3.4-million-unit increase in sales of its PlayStation 2 games, but it also forecasts a massive decline in sales of its games for Nintendo platforms. Capcom expects a net profit of 3.9 billion yen ($36.3 million) for the current business year. The company made 3.6 billion yen ($33.5 million) during the business year ended March 31, 2005.

The rest of Capcom's FY 2005 sales projections are listed below.

FY 2004 Sales Results (4/1/2004 - 3/31/2005)
PlayStation 2 - 40 titles, 7.3 million copies
GameCube - five titles, 2 million copies
Xbox - seven titles, 250,000 copies
Game Boy Advance - seven titles, 3.4 million copies
PC & Misc. - 11 titles, 400,000 copies

FY 2005 Sales Estimates (4/01/2005 - 3/31/2006)
PlayStation 2 - 55 titles, 10.7 million copies
GameCube - four titles, 350,000 copies
Xbox - eight titles, 750,000 copies
Game Boy Advance - four titles, 1.25 million copies
PC & Misc. - zero titles, zero copies