My review of Resident Evil 6, while not full of the torches and pitchforks most Western critics have been handing out for Capcom, was hardly enthusiastic. And I still think it’s a mediocre game.
But there’s an ongoing theme in the gaming press that Capcom has finally killed the franchise. And, going by the critics, they’d be right.
One small problem with that: So far, Capcom’s shipped 4.5 million units of the game, an in-house record. True, shipments aren’t sales, but that’s still a lot of games out the door.
Of course, this raises a few possible problems with Resident Evil 7. But this is good news not just for the franchise, but for the beleaguered publisher and developer that put it out.
Let’s start with the franchise itself:
Even The Angriest Critic Has To Admit That The Series Has Improved Technically Over Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil 6 is in no way perfect, mind you, but the graphics are stunning, the AI is much improved, and there’s more gameplay variety. Unless you were demanding the franchise suddenly be nothing but survival horror, which it hasn’t been since Resident Evil 4, this is a pretty good overhaul.
There Will Be a Resident Evil 7
It’s likely already in the works. You don’t break in-house records and then give up. So, no, the franchise is not dead, but Capcom reads reviews like anybody else.
The Franchise Has Had Actual High Notes Recently
Lost amid all the hubbub about the latest console entry was, as our own Nathan Birch pointed out, the fact that Resident Evil: Revelations was a great game. If Resident Evil 6 has to be the chunk of cheese to make the money that Capcom needs to justify games like that to its board, OK then.
Now for Capcom itself:
Capcom Just Proved They Can Still Sell Games In the West
In America, Capcom is struggling. Dragon’s Dogma was a hit, true, but not the way Capcom intended: They wanted to demonstrate they could sell an RPG to the West, and wound up selling it to Monster Hunter fans in the East, while it became a critical favorite and a cult hit in the West. But a lot of their games, whether due to lack of appeal or just trading too much on nostalgia, have fallen flat. Capcom needed to show their board they can sell games outside of Japan… and they’ve just done that.
Capcom Desperately Needed a Win On Consoles
As regular readers know, I’m skeptical the next console generation will have any successors. Part of the reason for that is that what sells systems in Japan, you know, Nintendo and Sony’s home country, are relatively cheap games that could easily be mobile apps. Which also cost less to produce and have more of a profit margin. This is not good news if you happen to make portable consoles, and it’s not great for home consoles, either.
And many Japanese publishers and developers last year did not make money because of, but rather despite, console games. Mobile is where the money is, and Capcom is not an exception to this. Some chalk this up to a lack of new consoles, especially within the industry… a theory we’re going to start testing later this year for better or for worse. Personally, I am skeptical the Wii U is going to demonstrate anything other than Nintendo’s ability to push product with in-house development.
In the meantime, these sometimes not exactly financially solvent companies have to justify the enormous cost of console development to their investors, and that’s getting harder and harder. There’s a reason Mega Man’s 25th anniversary was greeted not with a new console game, but with a mobile RPG: That mobile RPG will make money.
If Resident Evil 6 had bombed, Capcom’s exit from consoles would have been a “when”, not an “if”. They just would have no justification for not doing so, having thrown an undisclosed but enormous budget and 600 of their best at a flagship title for the company that tanked.
I can’t emphasize enough the loss to both gamers and consoles it would be if Capcom went entirely mobile. That means Street Fighter, Mega Man, Ace Attorney, Onimusha, Dead Rising… All either exclusively mobile games or worse, dead as franchises. The morale effect on the Japanese gaming industry would be devastating as well: If Capcom couldn’t make money on console games, then every board on every publisher would be wondering, very, very loudly, why they should be throwing their money at what’s obviously not profitable.
Don’t get me wrong: This is just a stay of execution right now. Smaller companies will be sucked into the mobile whirlpool, something Sony may have to start paying a premium to stop in order to keep its RPG lifeblood, and nobody is talking about the Ouya arriving in March, partially because console companies are secretly hoping the company will just collapse without putting out a product, or if they do, that it doesn’t catch on in Japan. You know, because the Japanese hate tiny things that play video games. Can’t stand them. Cultural thing, don’tcha know.
But for now, Chris, Leon, and Wesker’s bratty son have saved a beloved company, and we owe them one for it.