Capcom is undoubtedly one of the largest and most important publishers internationally in videogames, having a great presence especially in Japanese territory -for obvious reasons-. It owns some of the most successful licenses in history, such as Monster Hunter, Resident Evil or Street Fighter, being normally a safe bet for quality games.
Capcom actually was founded in 1979 under the name Japan Capsule Computers, as a company dedicated to exploiting the booming business of arcade video game machines. This recreational business brought him a great benefit and, in fact, it is still one of the companies that bet on machines and games for recreation rooms – which are still very popular in Japan. Capcom, in fact, is a name that comes from this era: (Cap) sule (Com) puters.
In the mid and late 80s Capcom began marketing some of its great sagas, also for home consoles, reaching names known worldwide as Street Fighter and Mega Man, bringing much more success and international recognition. Since then they have created some of the best licenses in a good handful of genres … how have they done in terms of sales? We review the best-selling Capcom video game franchises in history.
In this sales list we observe how the best-selling license is with a lot of margin Resident Evil, followed by Monster Hunter, Street Fighter and Mega Man.
Commando (2 titles) – 1.2 million units.
1942 (3 titles) – 1.4 million units.
Okami (11 titles) – 2.8 million units.
Breath of Fire (15 titles) – 3.2 million units.
Final Fight (10 titles) – 3.2 million units.
Sengoku BASARA (30 titles) – 4 million units.
Ghosts'n Goblins (14 titles) – 4.2 million units.
Dino Crisis (13 titles) – 4.4 million units.
Dragon's Dogma (13 titles) – 4.9 million units.
Lost Planet (17 titles) – 6.2 million units.
Ace Attorney (30 titles) – 7.3 million units.
Onimusha (16 titles) – 8.3 million units.
Marvel vs. Capcom (16 titles) – 9.3 million units.
Dead Rising (22 titles) – 13 million units.
Devil May Cry (31 titles) – 21 million units.
Mega Man (154 titles) – 35 million units.
Street Fighter (91 titles) – 44 million units.
Monster Hunter (47 titles) – 60 million units.
Resident Evil (135 titles) – 95 million units.
However, in the calculation of units sold per game released, there are many surprises on average. The most profitable license in this regard is undoubtedly Monster hunter, with an average of 1.2 million sold for each game in the market. Far behind are Resident Evil, Devil May Cry and Commando.
Sengoku BASARA – 0.13 million sold on average / game.
Breath of Fire – 0.21 million sold on average / game.
Mega Man – 0.22 million sold on average / game.
Ace Attorney – 0.24 million sold on average / game.
Okami – 0.25 million sold on average / game.
Ghosts'n Goblins – 0.3 million sold on average / game.
Final Fight – 0.32 million sold on average / game.
Dino Crisis – 0.33 million sold on average / game.
Lost Planet – 0.36 million sold on average / game.
Dragon's Dogma – 0.37 million sold on average / game.
1942 – 0.46 million sold on average / game.
Street Fighter – 0.48 million sold on average / game.
Onimusha – 0.51 million sold on average / game.
Marvel vs. Capcom – 0.58 million sold on average / game.
Dead Rising – 0.59 million sold on average / game.
Commando – 0.6 million sold on average / game.
Devil May Cry – 0.67 million sold on average / game.
Resident Evil – 0.7 million sold on average / game.
Monster Hunter – 1.2 million sold on average / game.
