Japan’s Capcom Says Opportunities are Overseas, Domestic Merger Not an Option

Capcom's Monster Hunter booth, TGS 2010

Thanks to the folks over at Gamasutra for pointing out this interesting note from Capcom emphasizing that its future business success depends heavily upon finding good partners outside of Japan. The statement was posted to its investor relations website. Here are a few notable excerpts:

Capcom must increase sales in the Consumer Online Games Business outside Japan, where the market for these games is larger and there is much more growth potential, in order to maintain growth. Acquisitions and partnerships are one of the important strategies for increasing our market share overseas.

However, a merger with a large Japanese game or toy manufacturer is not being considered as a serious option since it would not make a significant contribution to growth in our overseas sales.

In terms of recent acquisitions, the company did acquire Canada’s Blue Castle Games last year, who has been working on the Dead Rising series.

As for other activities, Capcom’s made a commitment to the social gaming space earlier in the year by establishing its Beeline subsidiary. The company recently stated that it is “working hard on Beeline-brand social games for overseas markets.”

Capcom will be in attendance at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show, so we’re looking forward to talking with them about overseas ambitions. As far as Japanese gaming companies go, Capcom isn’t the only one with eyes set abroad.

Capcom sales by region, 2000-2010 (millions of yen)

[Data: Capcom]