The high price of PlayStation 5 gaming is affecting Monster Hunter Wilds sales, Capcom has said.
Monster Hunter Wilds got off to an incredible sales start when it launched in February. After releasing to a Capcom record-setting 10.1 million copies sold, 8 million of which were in just three days, Wilds shot up to become the best-selling game in the U.S. year-to-date according to Circana.
However, for the quarter ending June 30, Monster Hunter Wilds sold 477,000 copies, only just above the 389,000 copies sold of four-year-old game Monster Hunter Rise. Wilds was the 9th best-selling game of the quarter for Capcom, while Rise was the 10th.
In Capcom’s consolidated financial results, the company said: “Regarding catalog titles, although sales were soft for Monster Hunter Wilds, the latest title in the series released in February this year, Monster Hunter Rise, a previous title in the same series, continued to see sales growth.”
As reported by Automaton, Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto told Nikkei Gaming that the cost of entry to play Monster Hunter Wilds on a PS5 is “rather steep.” Indeed, Capcom thought the PS5 was going to be the primary sales platform for Monster Hunter Wilds at launch.
Here’s Automaton:
In an interview with Nikkei Gaming, Tsujimoto revealed that Capcom considered the PlayStation 5 as Monster Hunter Wilds’ main platform when estimating the game’s initial sales figures. But accounting for the console, accessories, and monthly subscriptions like PlayStation Plus, the total cost for a PS5 amounts to about 100,000 JPY (roughly $677 USD). Add in Monster Hunter Wilds’ $70 USD price tag, and some people would rather pay for older, more complete entries, such as Monster Hunter World (which sells for as low as $9.89 USD) and Monster Hunter Rise ($9.99 USD), than buy a new console for a game with, currently, less content. Considering many gamers are young and don’t have a source of income, Tsujimoto admits the cost of entry to play Monster Hunter Wilds on a PS5 is rather steep.
The cost of PS5 gaming was made worse last month when Sony announced $50 price rises for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, and PlayStation 5 Pro. The base PS5 with a disc drive went up by $50 to $549.99, while the PS5 Digital Edition cost $50 more, at $499.99. The PS5 Pro, meanwhile, rose $50 to $749.99. The price hike went into effect in the U.S. on August 21.
“Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment,” Isabelle Tomatis, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Vice President, Global Marketing said in a statement. “As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price for PlayStation 5 consoles in the U.S. starting on August 21.”
There was no mention of Xbox console pricing in Tsujimoto’s comment.
So what’s the answer? Discounts, it seems, as well as more content via patches. Perhaps a launch on the record-breaking Nintendo Switch 2 will help, too.
Of course, actual players of Monster Hunter Wilds might have their own theories as to why the game hasn’t shown the same level of sales consistency as prior Monster Hunter games. After reviewing well initially, Wilds’ endgame content was considered sorely lacking compared to past games. It’s also suffering from severe performance issues on PC specifically that have yet to be fully resolved. Despite new content and seasons, fans remain unsatisfied with the state of the game, to the point where some players are taking things too far and apparently harassing and threatening individual Capcom team members over it.
On Steam, Monster Hunter Wilds has a ‘mixed’ user review rating for all reviews, but a ‘mostly negative’ user review rating for recent reviews.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
