Latest from TGS: Capcom COO would like to make the PC their main outlet

Dr. Nick

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Takashi Mochizuki on Twitter: "From Nikkei: Capcom COO says the company wants to set PC as main outlet for its game software. By 2022 or 2023, Capcom hopes sales of games on consoles : PCs to be 50:50. https://t.co/IsSAu0m3Ml" / Twitter

カプコン社長、自社のソフト販売「PC向けメインに」: 日本経済新聞 (nikkei.com)

Why did I put this here instead of PC gaming? Well as someone who likes gaming on consoles and given the current state of things in Japan I am all for them making PC their main. Not a fan of the likely alternative. Hopefully this is an actual direction they are taking and not just an idea. If they are heading in that direction hopefully most of the other developers in Japan both large and small follow Capcom's lead.
 
Takashi Mochizuki on Twitter: "From Nikkei: Capcom COO says the company wants to set PC as main outlet for its game software. By 2022 or 2023, Capcom hopes sales of games on consoles : PCs to be 50:50. https://t.co/IsSAu0m3Ml" / Twitter

カプコン社長、自社のソフト販売「PC向けメインに」: 日本経済新聞 (nikkei.com)

Why did I put this here instead of PC gaming? Well as someone who likes gaming on consoles and given the current state of things in Japan I am all for them making PC their main. Not a fan of the likely alternative. Hopefully this is an actual direction they are taking and not just an idea. If they are heading in that direction hopefully most of the other developers in Japan both large and small follow Capcom's lead.

This makes sense as while the console gaming market finally started growing again in 2017 after years of decline, it's growing much slower than PC gaming in Japan. PC gaming in Japan has accelerated as more and more Japanese gamers focus more on online gaming.

Here's a 2018 article which shows that the number of online PC gamers had already almost matched online console gamers.

Japan Games Market 2018 (newzoo.com)

A Famitsu article shows how the growth in Japanese non-PC gamers in 2017 was mostly stagnant while the number of Japanese PC gamers was growing incredibly fast. Oh and the only reason the console market wasn't still in decline? The release of the NSW.

in 2017, the global game content market increased by about 20% year-on-year, and "famitsu game white paper 2018", which accounts for 90% of digital distribution, will be published on june 25 - famitsu .com

From 2016 to 2017 the gaming population grew by ~5 million to ~49.22 million gamers. The PC population grew by 1.5x (50% growth) to ~14.83 million in that same time period. So that would be just a little bit less than 5 million new PC gamers. In other words, most of the growth in the gaming population in Japan was due to growth in PC gaming. If not for the release of the NSW, things would have been more dire for console gaming.

Keep in mind that 49.22 million gamers number for Japan includes mobile, console, and PC gamers. There's obviously some overlap between the groups, most notably mobile gamers overlapping with PC and console.

This trend of Japanese non-mobile gamers shifting to PC might help explain why Sony are increasingly interested in porting their games to PC, it just might be something they can't ignore unless they want to give up on the Japanese market.

Basically regardless of how console vs. PC goes in the rest of the world, Japanese developers don't want to abandon the Japanese market which is shifting increasingly more to PC gaming versus console gaming. In that respect the Japanese gaming market is aligning to be more similar to SEA (Southeast Asia), especially South Korea (where it's Mobile > PC > console).

Regards,
SB
 
Yeah I did not mean to imply that they would abandon the Japanese market, just that the alternative of mobile should not be what any console\PC gamer wants but still looks like the direction the market in Japan is headed for. Someone so high up in Capcom saying this tells me that they still see high end AA and AAA development as their way forward.
 
Aside from Resident Evil which has gone first-person on the new main titles, I just don't see how Capcom's arcadey franchises will suddenly become more appealing to the PC audience.
 
I always though Capcom was not chasing the larger Japanese gaming market, but rather a world-wide public of hard core gamers that seek AAA products. Capcom was quick to move onto the PS360 generation, for example, when in japan most consumers were still hanguing on to their PS2s and their new wii. But I'm no specialist, that was just my layman impression.
 
I always though Capcom was not chasing the larger Japanese gaming market, but rather a world-wide public of hard core gamers that seek AAA products. Capcom was quick to move onto the PS360 generation, for example, when in japan most consumers were still hanguing on to their PS2s and their new wii. But I'm no specialist, that was just my layman impression.

For PS3/X360 gen, it could be assumed (which in hindsight was a bad assumption) that the PS3 would do at least as well as the PS1 or PS2. There was nothing to indicate that PlayStation consoles would start declining in popularity and sales starting with the PS3 generation. Basically while the Japanese economy was in decline the PS brand had continued to grow despite that. But with hindsight it was obvious that PS3's price was far too high and combined with a steady decline in buying power for the average Japanese resident, this lead to many PS gamers not getting a PS3. Noone in the Japanese gaming industry could have predicted that PS3 would sell roughly half as many consoles as the PS2 did in Japan.

Capcom's approach was more aimed towards making itself more attractive world wide as well as within Japan. Basically, worldwide sales represented a potentially massive growth opportunity for the company and its revenue. But that doesn't mean that Capcom wanted to become irrelevant in the Japanese market or that it wanted to take a reduced role in the Japanese market. This meant an increased investment in consoles other than Japanese made consoles as well as starting their PC initiative. They are one of the first if not the first Japanese company to really embrace the PC platform.

I guess, some might view their partnership with MS for the X360 launch as moving away from Japan. However, for X360, Microsoft had committed to a massive push to try to break into the Japanese market. The timing was right for Capcom who happily took a lot of money from MS in order to start a couple new franchises (Dead Rising, exclusive and Lost Planet, timed exclusive). That said, both were still very much developed with an eye first towards the Japanese market with attempts to make them more attractive to Western markets. Zombies but with 3rd person action oriented gameplay versus the slower paced RE gameplay for Dead Rising. Mech combat with traditionally clunky Japanese controls for Lost Planet. But at the same time they didn't stop developing their traditional Japanese roster of games.

And hindsight being what it is. If they had focused mostly on the Japanese market, they may no longer exist as an independent company due to how poorly PS3 did in Japan compared to PS1 and PS2. As it was even with a more global approach and embracing more platforms, the PS3/X360 generation was hard on the company.

Regards,
SB
 
For PS3/X360 gen, it could be assumed (which in hindsight was a bad assumption) that the PS3 would do at least as well as the PS1 or PS2. There was nothing to indicate that PlayStation consoles would start declining in popularity and sales starting with the PS3 generation. Basically while the Japanese economy was in decline the PS brand had continued to grow despite that. But with hindsight it was obvious that PS3's price was far too high and combined with a steady decline in buying power for the average Japanese resident, this lead to many PS gamers not getting a PS3. Noone in the Japanese gaming industry could have predicted that PS3 would sell roughly half as many consoles as the PS2 did in Japan.

Capcom's approach was more aimed towards making itself more attractive world wide as well as within Japan. Basically, worldwide sales represented a potentially massive growth opportunity for the company and its revenue. But that doesn't mean that Capcom wanted to become irrelevant in the Japanese market or that it wanted to take a reduced role in the Japanese market. This meant an increased investment in consoles other than Japanese made consoles as well as starting their PC initiative. They are one of the first if not the first Japanese company to really embrace the PC platform.

I guess, some might view their partnership with MS for the X360 launch as moving away from Japan. However, for X360, Microsoft had committed to a massive push to try to break into the Japanese market. The timing was right for Capcom who happily took a lot of money from MS in order to start a couple new franchises (Dead Rising, exclusive and Lost Planet, timed exclusive). That said, both were still very much developed with an eye first towards the Japanese market with attempts to make them more attractive to Western markets. Zombies but with 3rd person action oriented gameplay versus the slower paced RE gameplay for Dead Rising. Mech combat with traditionally clunky Japanese controls for Lost Planet. But at the same time they didn't stop developing their traditional Japanese roster of games.

And hindsight being what it is. If they had focused mostly on the Japanese market, they may no longer exist as an independent company due to how poorly PS3 did in Japan compared to PS1 and PS2. As it was even with a more global approach and embracing more platforms, the PS3/X360 generation was hard on the company.

Regards,
SB

I see. That makes perfect sense.
 
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