Devil May Cry 5 has shipped two million units worldwide since it launched on March 8th, 2019.
Director Hideaki Itsuno confirmed the milestone during a presentation at the Game Developers Conference. In comparison, mainline predecessor Devil May Cry 4 took a month to hit two million and only hit 2.32 by the end of its launch year. The game didn’t reach the three-million milestone until 2014 (thanks, VentureBeat).
This latest instalment of Capcom’s hack-and-slash fighting series has been both a commercial and critical hit, adding yet another game to its long line of impressive titles. Capcom was off to a strong start this year as Resident Evil 7: Biohazard re-entered the charts at No.28 with a 68 per cent rise in sales as players got ready for the release of Resident Evil 2, which has become Capcom’s biggest launch since Resident Evil 7 and shipped three million copies in just four days. This comes after a record-breaking 2018 for Capcom, which doubled its profits for the first half of this fiscal year largely thanks to Monster Hunter: World, which has now become Capcom’s biggest selling game of all-time.
Topping 10 million shipments in the second quarter of this year – owed, in part, to the long-awaited release of Monster Hunter: World on PC – the action-RPG has hit a record high for the Japanese publisher and developer, prompting a 70 per cent year-on-year increase in H1 revenue to ¥34.2 billion ($305 million) and boosting Capcom’s operating profit to ¥11.8 billion ($105 million), a 207 per cent increase on the previous year. Net profit rose 97% to ¥6.8 billion ($61 million).
Launched in January 2018, Monster Hunter: World shifted 5 million units during its opening weekend, hitting 7.5 million copies sold by March 31st. Of course, Capcom’s success isn’t solely attributable to Monster Hunter: World; Resident Evil VII, Monster Hunter XX on Switch (a Japan-only title) and Switch-exclusive Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers also contributed to Capcom’s solid fiscal performance.
These profits come despite the closure of Dead Rising studio Capcom Vancouver at the end of last year, for which the publisher had anticipated losses of ¥4.5 billion after the termination of projects already in development, resulting in 158 job losses.