Like many other industries, the video games one is going through a large shift toward digital. Between services such as Game Pass, as well as digital being pushed with certain consoles, it’s part of an inevitable move. And one company that’s showing that in an extreme way is Capcom, as their digital to physical is very lopsided, and they hope to make it even more so.
In a question during their annual shareholders meeting, the company claimed that 80% of their sales came from digital. That’s a pretty staggering number, especially since most other major publishers are reporting something closer to 50-60%. Not only that, they say they eventually want that get to 90% with a minimum of players targeted for physical media.
“While it ultimately depends on how our customers behave going forward, for the time being we are promoting our digital strategy with an objective of 90%, since there are some customers who prefer to own discs. We aim to continue expanding our business performance by maximizing the benefits of digital sales, which include being able to provide our content both for longer periods of time and throughout the world.”
There are a couple of things to consider here, of course. While this undoubtedly driven by the successful sales of titles in their Resident Evil and Devil May Cry series, a lot of Capcom’s recent output has been re-releases of classic titles, many of which were either digital only or didn’t have a physical release until much later. One of their biggest releases the last fiscal year was also Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, which was an expansion that was only obtainable digitally to owners of the original World release.
Even still, 80% is quite the number, and Capcom seems confident here they will eventually get to even more. While their major releases will almost certainly always have a disc release, don’t be too surprised if some of their smaller scale releases will skip them in coming years.