Capcom’s president and chief operating officer believes that game costs should rise.
Nikkei reported that Haruhiro Tsujimoto discussed a variety of issues at the Tokyo Game Show, including the rising expense of game creation.
According to reports, Tsujimoto felt that game prices should reflect these rising costs and that they are too low at the moment.
Despite the fact that development expenses today are around 100 times higher than they were during the Famicom era, he claimed that software prices haven’t increased by the same amount. In order to recruit brilliance, wages must also be raised. Raising unit costs is a sound business strategy, in my opinion, given that industrywide salaries are increasing, Tsujimoto said.
One of the publishers that hasn’t yet joined the $70 industry average price point bandwagon is Capcom. Exoprimal, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Street Fighter 6 were the company’s three biggest releases this year, and each cost $60 at first. Tsujimoto’s remarks, however, make it seem as though Capcom will start seeking to raise the cost of its games.
Capcom is still working on this change, with some publishers starting to charge $70 for their titles. At launch, the regular editions of Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6 both cost $60.
Capcom also stated last year that it would increase the basic salary of its employees by 30% and implement a new bonus system that would be more directly related to the company’s business performance.
Tsujimoto is reported as saying in another section of the Nikkei piece that he didn’t believe the state of the economy was having an impact on sales of video games, adding: “Business confidence and high pricing have little to do with the games business.
High-quality games will continue to sell well, he said, just as consumers will continue to see the movies and concerts by their favorite artists despite the economic downturn. “Games sold well even during the collapse of Lehman Brothers.”
Capcom’s stock price reached a new all-time high of 5,270 in May and has subsequently smashed this record several times, reaching as high as 6,520 in July.
The Resident Evil publisher reported in its financial statements for the year ending March 31, 2023, that it had sold 41.7 million games during that calendar year, shattering its previous record for the most games sold in a calendar year.
