Capcom, one of the longstanding publishers that has been reliant on packaged retail sales for decades, sees a majority of its revenue and operating profits coming from digital sooner rather than later.
“I’d like to say that within five years, certainly well north of 50 percent of our revenue will be coming from digital, and significantly higher than [50 percent] of our operating profit will [come from digital],” predicted Christian Svensson, SVP of Capcom Entertainment in an interview with Gamasutra during GDC 2012.
“And certainly sometime before five years from now, every game will be digital and retail day and date [same release],” he added. “On some platforms that’s already the case, it is on Vita. In Europe, the PlayStation 3 is already that way. I wish it were that way in the States as well. But I’d say that’s an inevitability. No one is really fighting that, but the question is when that will occur.”
Svensson added, “Retail will always have a place in our future, but I think that five years down the road, the value proposition of retail, to publishers, will change.
“I think that retail’s role will shift from planned purchase to impulse purchase, predominantly, and planned purchases will increasingly happen online, just for sheer convenience’s sake.”
Gamasutra's full interview with Svensson will be published in the near future.
