Capcom eyes PC as its main gaming platform, and that's a very good thing
Over the last few years, Capcom has been knocking it out of the park with several high profile game releases that have firmly put the publisher on the map for even the most casual of gamers. Thanks to the company's flagship RE Engine, games like Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil Village and Devil May Cry 5 have been some of the most graphically impressive titles to release in the last few years, without sacrificing anything in the way of performance. Now, as reported by Nikkei (and translated by Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki), Capcom wants to make PC its main platform for its future titles, looking to achieve a sales ratio of 50:50 between PC and consoles by 2022 or 2023. We've already seen some evidence of this over the past few years when it comes to Capcom's PC ports. They're usually excellent ports, rife with all manner of display and graphics options to suit almost any modern PC build. As such, Capcom's PC efforts, particularly with RE Engine titles, are often incredibly scalable, meaning you don't need a beefy rig to play them. However, having a powerful gaming PC certainly helps, especially given the RE Engine's stunning visual fidelity. Capcom has also, occasionally, spent extra time on PC ports to get them just right. We saw this with Monster Hunter World, of which the PC port released almost seven months after it launched on PS4 and Xbox One. We're now seeing a similar situation with the current Switch exclusive Monster Hunter Rise, which launched on Nintendo's console back in March 2021. Rise's PC port is now due to release in January 2022. There's no doubt that Capcom's recent games have looked and played best on PC. The stunning levels of visual fidelity offered by the RE Engine has allowed titles like Resident Evil Village to really shine on high-end gaming PCs with 4K resolution, high framerates and options for advanced graphical options like ray tracing. The company looks to be making a statement with its upcoming PC port of Monster Hunter Rise, which is confirmed to feature high-resolution textures, 4K, unlocked framerates and even ultrawide support. It sounds like it's leaving the already excellent Switch version out to dry. Looking further into the future, Capcom having PC as its main platform could hopefully mean that its games won't be held back by last-gen hardware. By developing for PC first, we may be able to expect titles like Pragmata, Street Fighter 6 and the heavily rumored Resident Evil 4 Remake to look as excellent as possible. Are there any drawbacks to this approach? Sure. As a highly customizable platform, PC can be tricky to develop for. It's not uncommon for issues unique to PC versions to crop up where they simply don't on console, and players could be left waiting months for a patch to address outstanding bugs or oddities. Staggered releases between console and PC can also be viewed cynically, and rightly so. Many players don't like the idea of paying for a PC version of a game they bought months earlier on console. In this case, features such as cross saves (carrying your save file from one platform to another) and a lower price point can help take the edge off, even if it's not a perfect solution. Ultimately, it's great to see Capcom prioritize the PC platform, especially as it has the means to do so with its powerful RE Engine. As such, it's possible to expect the publisher to be putting out some of the most graphically impressive games of this generation, and given the IPs in the company's roster, that's something we're very excited about.
Opinion: Capcom and PC are a wonderful combination