Monster Hunter X (Cross) Sales Hit 3.2 Million as Capcom Talks Up 'Firm' Overseas Results

Not to be a stickler but this should be:
"Resident Evil Revelations 2, which came out on PS3, PS4, Vita, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. "
(Missing Vita)

Anyway my hope is that MHXG(if that is what they are making) is something that will come west and early into the NX's life. Of course MHX might be a one and only entry because of the soon to be NX, and Monster Hunter 5 is next.

Monster hunter is just a very solid game just like Zelda and Mario with a true identity and strong foundation which you can keep building on.

Glad that it's doing so well, it deserves it

It's good to see Nintendo showing people how to do things even if it's only in Japan, at one stage in the 90s people used to say what happened in Japan would happen here in the uk (where I live) but things have changed slightly but Nintendo I thank you I could not talk this way about any other company.

Capcom needs to hurry up and release Monster Hunter X in Europe and Americas on the first half of this year.

Looks to be an amazing game again!

Still waiting for Monster Hunter X in the West Capcom.

@wayneyrob22 It's Capcom that makes Monster Hunter, not Nintendo.

@crimsontadpoles OK were splitting hairs..OK capcom sell your game on a Sega platform!

Retail sales for MH4U in the US at the end of 2015 were 458 million according to leaked NPD numbers. So digital sales were pretty decent.

I know it was critically panned and revilations hd flopped on the wiiu but it would have been nice for Nintendo to get that release. I would buy it for my Xbox but part or the fun was having the off screen map and hot keys. Oh well can't blame them really

I'm not really interested in it, but so what? It keeps Capcom alive and that's all that matters because honestly, Capcom is a pretty good third party dev out there and is doing far better than what SEGA could wish they had done like Capcom earlier.

Nintendo....buy Capcom. I may not have any interest in Capcom games besides Mega Man and Strider but if you buy them, you own all their IP's which means that nobody will ever complain that Nintendo games are Kiddie!

But.....that's never gonna happen and even if it does happen, the ones who bought Capcom games on PC, Sony and Microsoft stuff will now complain wishing them to go back third party.

@IceClimbers "458 million"

Is that a jab at NPD or did you leave out a decimal?

@Socar
"means that nobody will ever complain that Nintendo games are Kiddie"

Seriously, who cares if some think that. The only ones who care are in fact little children who care about their image, or adults with a child's mentality.

So I say let em think what they want. If a person is such a child that they actually care about the games they play "not looking kiddie" then I say give em 10 years to grow up, and see if they still give a rat's a** about such an immature, irrelevant factor.

@rjejr Oops. Meant 458 thousand, which is still pretty good. 458 million would be beyond insane.

Really wish they'd just give us X in the west, but at this point seems so unlikely... Maybe if they do a G/Ultimare version but that's just even more waiting. >>

Terrible that the sales of RER 2 were so low, much better game than RE 5 or 6.

A lot of good that does us over here.

And I'm here waiting for Dai Gyakuten Saiban... Don't think it will ever launch in the west, but I'm holding out a little hope!

@IceClimbers

Beyond insane.. definitely. All 7th and 8th gen consoles combined barely make 500 million.

Although it is great that Monster Hunter is getting the success it deserves. Love the series. Would love to get my hands on X day 1 when it comes out.

This as been a great series to play and watch get better with each release. I hope there is a great mh coming to nx launch. I really enjoyed mh4 and even my 5 year old got hooked. I have to help him with the rpg aspects, but we have probably 50 hours logged on our 3ds'.

I want Stories.

@Donutman I just had a thought...

What if a new MH game is an NX launch title? Especially if it's a hybrid system, as 3 Ultimate showed it could be console and handheld... Either way, what a good way for a third party company to showcase the new system's capabilities? Graphics, online capabilities, etc...

I'm guessing we'll be getting "Monster Hunter X Ultimate" once that drops. Looking forward to it.

Still waiting for E.X. Troopers (localisation), Monster Hunter Stories (release - I'll import) and Dai Gyakuten Saiban (localisation).

Good to hear they are happy with their recent releases though. Revelations 2 is an interesting one, I started off really disliking it and still think the movement and health system are annoying. I might get the full disc release with time though since Episode 1 did improve with time.

@SetupDisk They made a few odd design decisions(target platform, chapters etc) with the game which I believed aided in its poor sales.

@thelastgogeta Which one was Dai Gyakuyten Saiban again? The old timey Ace Attorney?

Nintendo has been racking up good 3rd party alliances at least where they're from. Namco and Capcom and Sega seem to be on their side. I hope for MHX to do well and we could probably inspire more people to jump in the Nintendo ship.

Y'know, this is why Nintendo can't screw the NX up. It's success is the most immediate chance Monster Hunter has at a console entry in the near future.

Man they make so much money with Monster Hunter alone. The have some other games that they could make a lot of money on but it's almost like these companies are afraid these days to take that kind of a chance on another brand. It seems the only company willing to take a chance anymore is Nintendo and you just got to love them for it. We still get Charming, different, well thought ought out and odd releases you would not see on other consoles. If there are any Dev's out there..... Take a chance and be different.

@JaxonH I know but its really irritating to keep hearing that same thing over and over again. Makes me wanna Smash something lol.

@Windy Exactly. At this point, it just makes me say why would SEGA ever want to take risks when Sonic is all that prints them the biggest cash?

Konami is screwed so even if they want to try something, its too late for that to happen.

Remember how everyone didn't like the way Wind Waker was back then? And now you have someone like me who wants a game based on that art style!

Hoping for MHXU O/

@Socar Capcom made what looked like a 3D shooter early on for the 3DS. It had online play I think and looked amazing with anime style Cell shaded graphics. But we didn't even get a sniff in North America or Europe. People were screaming for that game. I wish I could remember the name. Brb I'm going to research around and post a video. My point is... They didn't want to take a chance in Europe or North America. Brb.

@JaxonH
Actually the kiddy/ "casual"/family friendly image is driving Western 3rd parties away, who don't want to bother with systems that have those groups in meaningful amounts.

That image is preventing "hardcore"/real gamers from buying Nintendo games and system.
It's also preventing the industry from taking Nintendo seriously.

The main focus of the gaming industry are on male gamers 15-35 who want AAA blockbuster games, M-rated games and sports games.

This is all based on NPD's and EEDAR's research and connections in the gaming industry.

@Xenocity
That is unrelated to "kiddie image". That's saying people don't play on Nintendo because they're afraid they'll be seen as immature.

And most males over 18 are grown enough to not have such a child-like mentality. The only ones who think that way are, actual children.

Most of the adult world just plays whatever they like- and sure, most of that is mature AAA games, but I promise you they wouldn't think twice about playing a rated E game if they found it fun. Not for one second does a grown man stop and say "ya know I really love this game BUT, it doesn't have any blood or swearing and my friends might label me as childish for playing it".

Like I said, only children think that way.

http://youtu.be/B2l6JLGkJXQ

Capcom needs to release E.X. Troopers

I really hope the WiiU or NX gets another version, i'm kinda tired of playing MH on small screens, it was soooo much more fun on the WiiU and better looking.

Anyways fingers crossed. ^^ MH3U was one of my fav WiiU games.

So Revelations 2 skips Ninendo platforms and the multiplatform release does worse then single platform release of Monster Hunter on 3DS.

Maybe the problem wasn't Nintendo platform owners, huh Capcom?

Hopefully this will motivate Capcom to develop games for a Nintendo audience.

Why did resident evil skip 3ds and wiii especially the 3ds when it was first on it! I'm not buying it for that reason!( I have a pc)

@JaxonH
You really don't understand the masculine identity, especially the American and British masculine identities.

Both cultures heavily stress that men do men things and if they do non manly things they get punished for violating the social and gender norms, with social and gender specific punishments.
There is a whole class of psychology and psychiatry built around it with actual therapies to correct the issue.

Hell boys who go through K-12 education in both countries are given corrective lessons and even therapy to ensure they develop into men properly.
Even I had a form of this given to me in elementary school and high school to ensure I developed into socially and gender proper male.
One of the things they tried to impart on me, was I should like more gritty, fighting, harsh and violent stuff.
I was told I needed to lay off the animation, G/PG movies, and stop playing Nintendo and E rated games because they were too childish for my 10 year old self. I was told it each year in elementary school and It was reapplied to me in High School.

Even my college professors couldn't understand why I was still into animation including PG rated animation, when my fellow 20 something males were off doing proper 20 something male stuff including playing shooters.

I was the odd ball out in college, because I played Nintendo and E rated games.

Even at the age of 30, I still get stopped in public by people (including men and women) asking me why I am playing with stuff intended for children (my 3DS and Nintendo games).

With this all said...

Movie Industry market research has shown that adult and teenage boys almost exclusively watch movies that are action heavy, violent heavy, and sex heavy.
They typically shun all other types of movies due them lacking in mature stuff.
They also avoid PG and G movies with passion.

Men and teenage boys who go see other types of movies, especially animation, are looked down upon in the West as doing an immature and feminine activity.

The music and TV industries also heavily mirror the movie industries in what men and teenage boys view. It was all confirmed via market research.

They literally sit men and women down and show them movies, TV shows, music and ads to figure out how to appeal properly to both groups.

As for gaming, NPD (they do more than just games), Pachter (his stuff is posted on this site), Nielsens (they do more than U.S. TV ratings), Pew Research (they do more than politics), EEDAR (gaming only) and the ESA have invested billions of U.S. dollars to figure out the different types of gamers and what they play.

The only group they were able to pin down through all this research was the 15-35 Western males who are given the label as "hardcore"/Real gamers exclusively play:

-AAA blockbuster games
-M rated games
-Realistic sports games

• Realistic racers
  Realistic others

That group literally doesn't play anything else, even if the game is free.
The research has shown they avidly avoid E and E10+ rated games.
They avoid most T rated games.
They refuse to play games that have bright colors or lots of colors
They don't enjoy family friendly designs
They avoid most games that have local co-op
They avoid playing on systems that have large groups of other people
They avoid playing with everyone else aka "casuals".
They lastly do not want to associate with a brand that advertises to others.

This group is willing to spend more money than everyone else and doesn't complain very often and they don't return games much either.

Playstation and Xbox brands areheavily built on this market research and are laser focused on this group.
Nearly all Western developers only cater to this group at the expense of everyone else.

The list of the games that sold at least 1M on Xbox 360 nearly all of them were Sports (E-rated), racers (E-rated), AAA blockbuster and M rated games.
If you didn't fit into these groups, you bombed hard with only Minecraft and Kinect Adventures bucking the trend.

PS3 followed suit, with only LBP1 and Minecraft breaking the trend.

Xbox One and PS4 are almost identical to their predecessors as to what the user base is buying in droves.

If you're not Sports (E-rated), racers (E-rated), AAA blockbuster and M rated games, you aren't doing well on Xbox One and PS4.

Sports (E-rated), racers (E-rated), AAA blockbuster and M rated games also make up the majority of the games that sold at least 1M on Steam. Though Steam has been slightly kinder to the other games.

Nintendo systems going back to NES are selling the direct inverse of Playstations, Xboxes, and Steam when it comes to games.

The point is Nintendo has long standing kiddy, family friendly, "casual", nerdy and feminine image with the Western public, with the stigma being strongest in U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia.

Steam and PC have the stigma of being for nerds and geeks (PC gaming has had this stigma since the 80s).

Playstation and Xbox have a strong image in the U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia for being machines that men play their "hardcore"/real game.

This stigma of hardware/brands is also reflected in Western development culture.

It's not just little kids and tweens trying to appear cool in the West.

P.S. in my last marketing class at university one of the women in the class told me her boyfriend wouldn't play on any Nintendo system, because he thought it was too feminine and kiddy.
She literally asked me if there was any masculine software that would make him play on her Nintendo systems.
He refused to Play Call of Duty on said Nintendo system because the system made Call of Duty feminine and kiddy.

I thought she was joking or something, but she was dead serious.

Sadly that wasn't the last time I heard stories like that.

@sandman89
Resident Evil skipped 3DS and Wii U, when Resident Evil Revelations bombed on consoles (Wii U version was in line with the other versions).
The 3DS version was the best selling version of that game.

Capcom claimed that the game bombed on the other consoles because the game released on a Nintendo system first, giving the game a "casual"/kiddy which killed the sales on Xbox and Playstation versions.

Wii U version bombed just as bad and Capcom said it confirmed that there is no market for those types of games on a Nintendo console.

Sadly Resident Evil: Revelations 2 bombed just as bad, which Capcom attributed to the negative stigma of the first game.

So YAY for US we killed the Revelations series.

@Xenocity What a fantastic post! A+

@Xenocity
I gotta hand it to you, that was a really well made argument. Enjoyable post indeed.

@Xenocity well I really enjoyed it on 3ds and was looking forward to the next installment 😒

@Action51 No, it did even worse than Revelations did on the original 3DS-only release.

Makes it sound much, much worse.

@Xenocity Thanks for stating facts.

It's nice to know that grand strategy will stay niche because of the way it appeals to people.

@Xenocity what's a hardcore gamer though? I'm coming 35 in May and I've been playing games since the C64, Atari, Spectrum. I've two kids now but I didn't have them when I bought my first console with my own money, the Dreamcast, or my GameCube or Wii. I love Nintendo games, I'd rather play Super Mario Galaxy, Splatoon, 3D World, Mario Kart etc than any particular iteration of COD. Don't get me wrong, I have COD for Wii U, but Nintendo games for me are just a joy, and that's what I play for. Am I casual gamer? I have no idea to be honest and I don't really care I guess but I have a lot of gaming experience and I'm still generally more excited for Nintendo & their latest moves and innovations than anything else.

@Xenocity I'm guessing the majority of readers on this site are people who (myself included) have completely rejected all that stereotypical macho, manly bs, and who actively avoid associating with those kinds of people, and that's why you get such strong reactions to your posts. But I want to apologize. I think I called you a troll in response to one of your posts a while back, because I thought that you yourself identified with this market research definition of what a "real" gamer is. I gather from what you posted here that you are simply citing market research stats and that you don't fit into that mold of their definition of a "real" or "hardcore" gamer.

I wonder though if market research is trying to discover what 15-35 year old males like, or if it is trying to confirm that years of cultural conditioning is working. After all, the military industrial complex always needs fresh recruits of insecure males who need to prove their manliness. Is it a coincidence that war, an absolutely horrible evil thing, is so glorified in our culture?

@Socar here is a game that Capcome didn't want to take a chance on which looks just amazing on 3ds.
http://youtu.be/B2l6JLGkJXQ

@Xenocity Rejecting something b/c it appears feminine is pure misogyny and makes me wonder why your classmate would date a guy like that. I love that there's a game system out there just for me (3DS). At the game store, the 3DS section appeals to me the most and the PS4/3 and Xbox One/360 seem a bit less approachable. I have started to open up my options to Playstation games after I bought a Vita to play Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (b/c I loved MH3U 3DS) and a PS3 to play Silent Hill and more Resi games (b/c I loved Resi DS). It was thanks to my experiences with Nintendo systems that I opened up my gaming library to include specific Playstation games. I'm still not after the Call of Dutys and Gran Turismos but I do know I can enjoy some unique games on a PS system. Perhaps being a gay person has something to do with it and it allows me license to choose feminine things b/c it's practically expected of me and no one raises an eyebrow if a gay guy gets into feminine things. I have played over 1000 hours on MH3U 3DS and I'm happy to play Fire Emblem and Style Savvy, as well. The 3DS was made for me.

@Warruz
Yes, I didn't get it till the whole games was on sale for 30 bucks. I hate getting games in chapter/episode forms and usually wait til the whole thing is out.

I'm still hoping that something like a MHX Ultimate ends up being an NX launch window title. MH3 Ultimate showed how 3DS and Wii U releases could work together, and if the NX really is a family of consoles on a unified platform like a lot of people expect, Monster Hunter is the perfect franchise to show off the multi-platform hotness.

@yourfriendjake The Ace Attorney game set in London for the most part, the protagonist is a predecessor to Naruhodo Ryuiichi (Phoenix Wright).

The Wikipedia page looks fairly good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Gyakuten_Saiban:_Naruhodō_Ryūnosuke_no_Bōken

There are also a lot of trailers. It commonly gets called "Great Ace Attorney" just in case you want to look around.

As for @Action51 in particular, most games fail to sell as much as Monster Hunter. Look at the Platinum Titles list linked in this post here: http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/business/million.html

Out of the top 10, 4 games are MH, 4 are main series RE and two are SF2 versions.

@Warruz @SetupDisk

Either way, you guys all misread the sales for Revelations 2. Capcom reported it selling 1.1 million last year (http://gematsu.com/2015/05/resident-evil-revelations-2-sales-top-1-1-million) as a "strong start" and this report is an additional 500K sales leading to 1.6 million in total: http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/business/million.html 100K more than Revelations on all platforms but the 3DS already.

@Windy Agreed. E.X. Troopers is a quite a looker both on the 3DS (both two copies - one is digital) and PS3 (got a physical copy). I can tell you a lot about the game, including that it doesn't actually support online on 3DS, but local multiplayer. The multiplayer consists of Versus, Capture the Flag and Cooperative Play on VR Missions. You can switch on items for the first two for something of a Mario Kart experience.

If you are interested in supporting localisation for the game and don't know much about the game in general. I recommend joining Capcom Unity to let people know about your interest and encouraging other people interested in the game to do so as well.

This is the main thread about the game - it details how localisation can happen: www.capcom-unity.com/capcom_games_discussion/go/forum/view/7341/17051/capcom-games-discussion

A pal and I have done a lot of work on the Wikipedia page as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.X._Troopers

There is a localisation section worth reading, though my posts as "Gogeta" on Capcom Unity clarify a ton.

@thelastgogeta That 1.1 million is across every platform EXCEPT Nintendo platforms, which includes multiple SKU creation and porting costs.

Now, I fully understand the economics of how this works, but it speaks to the larger issue of third party developers having shoddy, incomplete, and inconsistent support of their IP on Nintendo platforms, while expecting instant consumer loyalty anyway.

Monster Hunter is a perfect example of what happens when you cultivate a fanbase on a particular platform. Now they have a huge hit, and fans of the series will probably buy the next Nintendo handheld and the next iteration of Monster Hunter on that handheld.

RE: Revelations fans? Well...get an Xbox?...or...

@Action51 I'm aware that the 1.1 million doesn't include the 3DS from back then. Capcom definitely sunk some money just to reach all of those platforms.

However, it is Capcom's strategy to roll with "single content, multiple usage" whether it is a lot of ports, or anime, manga and movies related to their software. I don't think Capcom is spot on about Resident Evil, since they aren't community experiences which actively get fractured by more platforms (why they normally only do one portable?).

They seem to know how to work with Monster Hunter. Like you say, they did a good job cultivating a fanbase but I feel they picked the 3DS as the hardware was the only reasonable choice. It avoids them needing to go far out there to revamp assets, it gives them a massive established Japanese audience and so on.

The Vita wouldn't make sense with an audience which wouldn't get the 3 million sales of games like at least one PSP MH and multiple 3DS MH games.

@thelastgogeta

My main point was that RE: Revelations was a 3D exclusive, and it didn't sell to expectation so they multi-platform ported it, then "punished" Nintendo fans by not bringing the sequel to everything except Nintendo platforms.

Then the sequel sold pretty modestly across all platforms anyway.

This is a common theme with large third party developers. Sony and Microsoft will continue to get support and sequels regardless of whether or not one or more entry doesn't perform on a particular console.

Then they wonder why they have a hard time reaching faithful Nintendo consumers.

@Action51 It actually sold well for the 3DS according to the producer of the game: "Going by the 3DS market at the time we released the game, it was definitely a success and we're certainly hoping we can repeat that success with the home console version."

Masachika Kawata continued:
"Given the large development costs we had on the 3DS version, we would have liked to have even a little more sales than we did in the end. But that doesn't mean we saw it as a failure by any means."

Sold modestly on other platforms? I suppose, but if they were able to make good money while just tailoring a game for more hardware then adding DLC. That's a success and presumably why part of why they went with a Revelations 2.

Capcom in general don't really do exclusives unless there is no next to chance of selling it somewhere else, not that I can disagree about some third parties though. Correct me if I'm wrong.

@thelastgogeta - Everything you said makes what Capcom did even more egregious.

So if it sold well on 3DS, why not make the sequel on 3DS instead of every platform EXCEPT 3DS and Wii U?

Why would a fan of the resident evil games stick with Nintendo platforms, even if they were loyal and bought the games when there is no consistency in whether or not releases show up, and you get left out even if a game does well?

It just further supports my assertion that we can't use the excuse that "third party games don't sell well" on Nintendo consoles.

@Action51 Honestly, I think you should support games with the aim to get a good release, not an extended franchise on your system of choice but I agree that it is a let down to buy a game (say BlazBlue Continuum Shift 2 on 3DS - not a great port but a great game, basically a copy and paste of the PSP one) only to see a successor skip your system of choice (BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend, it was even on the PSP in Japan).

My only assumption for the Resident Evil case in particular is that the co-op, RE.net (a system used for numerous RE games) and game structure wasn't going to be very compatible with the 3DS, it may not be a looker for the PS3 and above but it is a more ambitious title even if I like what I've played less. It even switched from a mostly RE4 control scheme to a generic dual analog control scheme which had enemies leaping out very aggressively.

The Wii U? It must have sold especially poorly for the platform since Capcom released Revelation 2 for the Vita at some point, perhaps it was Sony lending a hand.

@Action51 Honestly, I think you should support games with the aim to get a good release, not an extended franchise on your system of choice but I agree that it is a let down to buy a game (say BlazBlue Continuum Shift 2 on 3DS - not a great port but a great game, basically a copy and paste of the PSP one) only to see a successor skip your system of choice (BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend, it was even on the PSP in Japan).

My only assumption for the Resident Evil case in particular is that the co-op, RE.net (a system used for numerous RE games) and game structure wasn't going to be very compatible with the 3DS, it may not be a looker for the PS3 and above but it is a more ambitious title even if I like what I've played less. It even switched from a mostly RE4 control scheme to a generic dual analog control scheme which had enemies leaping out very aggressively.

The Wii U? It must have sold especially poorly for the platform since Capcom released Revelation 2 for the Vita at some point, perhaps it was Sony lending a hand.

@thelastgogeta said: "Honestly, I think you should support games with the aim to get a good release, not an extended franchise on your system of choice"

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. In fact they go hand in hand. Why shouldn't a company strive to grow a fanbase from a particular platform by releasing high quality games consistently?

Isn't that exactly why Nintendo has such consumer loyalty?

@Action51 Again, I don't really disagree. Nintendo definitely has a lot of loyalty thanks to big hits which are consistent from platform to platform even if there are droughts that third parties might not always cover.

What I'm saying is that Resident Evil is an exception, the rest of Capcom's 3DS support has been very good.

2011 - SSF43D, The Mercenaries, MH3G, Nazo Waku Yakata
2012 - Resident Evil Revelations, E.X. Troopers,
2013 - Gaist Crusher, Monster Hunter 4, MH3U, AA5
2014 - Gaist Crusher God, Monster Hunter 4G.
2015 - Monster Hunter X, Great Ace Attorney.

This year has AA6 and Monster Hunter Stories and isn't a complete list though most games I didn't mention are VC.

You can say RE doesn't pop up on the 3DS as often as it did and even that Capcom need to localise more/faster. I think their output is fine though.