Capcom recently joined in on the HD remaster brigade when they brought out the cult classic and highly beloved Gamecube remake of Resident Evil (affectionately dubbed the REmake) for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC. The remaster was a hit as well, garnering the kind of critical acclaim the Resident Evil franchise has not done in nearly a decade, and selling over a million copies worldwide.
Capcom sees leveraging its old titles as a key component of its strategy going forward. Put simply? They will be putting out more HD remasters from now on.
“HD remasters of our catalogue hit titles will be one of our key business activities,” Capcom said during a Q&A session at its latest financial briefing, noting that digital marketplaces will serve as the primary avenue of delivering such content.
“Overseas, it is becoming difficult to sell these lower-priced and re-mastered titles at stores because of the declining number of stores and sales area limitations. Therefore, we started aggressive digital download sales activities,” the publisher explained.
“These activities created new demand for these titles. For example, overseas download sales of Resident Evil (HD Remastered) in the past fiscal year were far higher than we expected. It is not a risk but rather the growth of the download sales channel gives users more options. We regard this as growth in opportunities to have allow access for more people to enjoy our games.”
Of course, we already knew this- Capcom had already launched a remaster of the Ninja Theory helmed Devil May Cry reboot recently. And while I am all for them using this to steady themselves financially (the company has run into some hard times in recent years), and to expose their classic games to newer, wider audiences, I do also hope that they won’t remaster old games at the expense of actually, you know, making new ones.