Capcom is struggling right now. Despite initial strong sales of Monster Hunter World, the Japanese giant now finds itself in a spot of bother. Indeed, Monster Hunter World sales have slowed to a trickle. Capcom’s stock value has taken quite the hit because of this. The latest Monster Hunter has surprisingly underperformed.
The stock market is a reactionary world (it has to be). The game’s sales have been deemed a “risk” for Capcom. The house of Street Fighter has seen its stock plummet by 11.87 percent. It’s a cruel world. One minute, Monster Hunter World is your best selling game of all time, the next? Poof. Forgotten. It seems as though the game didn’t have the legs going forward.
Capcom stock is currently -11.87% with one hour of trading to go in Tokyo.
Reason: Merrill Lynch Japan lowered the target price from 2,800 to 2,300 yen yesterday, and downgraded Capcom stock to “underperform”, with Monster Hunter World sales cited as being a “risk”.
— Dr. Serkan Toto (Kantan Games Inc.) (@serkantoto) July 10, 2018
Merrill Lynch Japan has lowered Capcom’s target price from 2800 to 2300 Yen. A big jump down. The reason given for such a move was simply to do with Monster Hunter World sales. People have not been so hot on Monster Hunter World since its launch. A cursory glance over to VGChartz shows that its sales have dwindled massively in recent weeks throughout the world. With the imminent release of Monster Hunter World on PC, however, sales of the game will surely pick up?
In an article from Financial Times (a subscription is required), more detail regarding Capcom’s loss in stock value is given. They explain that “although cumulative sales volume is growing steadily, we get the impression the popularity of Monster Hunter is dying down sixth months after its release.” There is a “significant risk of sales decline” for Monster Hunter World. While World was hugely popular upon release, we have found that in general talk of the title has diminished. Can this not be said of the majority of games, however? God of War, for example, was huge when released, but you don’t hear of it nearly as much as you once did.
Hopefully, Monster Hunter World sales can pick up again following the release of its PC version. Perhaps Capcom just overestimated how well the game would sell in the first place?
