Resident Evil 5 sales surpass 5 million

LOS ANGELES--Last week, Capcom's chief financial officer Kazuhiko Abe said during the Reuters Global Technology Summit that Resident Evil 5 sold 570,000 units in April, bringing the game's total shipped figure to 4.97 million.

Today, Capcom confirmed that RE5 covered the remaining 30,000 units to the next milestone, bringing the survival horror game's total global shipment tally to more than 5 million. Capcom notes that Resident Evil 5 sales have now set a new franchise record, having surpassed Resident Evil 2's 4.96-million-unit peak.

The game isn't done selling yet by a long shot, by Capcom's estimates. As part of Abe's Reuters Summit presentation, the company CFO said that RE5 sales are now expected to exceed 1 million units during Capcom's current fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010. The PC edition of the game is expected to launch later this year. In May, the publisher forecast fiscal-year sales of ¥95 billion ($961.3 million), with operating income projected to rise to ¥15.5 billion ($156.9 million).

Capcom is also seeing success with Resident Evil Degeneration, which launched for the iPhone and iPod Touch on May 12. According to the publisher, the $6.99 downloadable game based on the film of the same name achieved the No. 1 sales position on the iTunes Store on the day of its release.