Exoprimal is quite the weird beast. The mecha dinosaur game from the makers of Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Monster Hunter always seemed like a slightly tough sell, only for players to discover upon launch that it had a whole hidden second aspect behind the PvP multiplayer mode that was presented as its bread and butter. Yet despite a languishing Steam player count, Capcom reports that the addition of Exoprimal to Microsoft’s Xbox and PC Game Pass service offered them a ‘large increase in digital revenue’ for the quarter.
The Exoprimal talk comes as part of Capcom’s second quarter financial results for the fiscal year ending in March 2024, which is provided via its website in Japanese and has been machine translated. This quarter saw increased sales from the same time last year, thanks in part to the launch of Street Fighter 6, and the company reports a 52.7% increase in sales revenue and a 54.5% increase in profits, which Capcom says is “mainly due to growth in the digital business,” and mentions the dinosaur game coming to Game Pass specifically.
When asked by an investor about the company’s “large increase in digital licensing revenue quarter to quarter,” Capcom responds that this is primarily due to revenue brought in from putting Exoprimal on Game Pass. While we don’t know exactly what the numbers involved in that deal are, Techraptor notes that Capcom reports an increase in digital licensing revenue from 2.2 billion yen (~$14.7 million) to 3.7 billion (~$24.7 million) year-on-year for the first half of the fiscal year, a pretty sizable jump.
While Exoprimal may be struggling to find purchase on Steam, then, where it has failed to top 1,000 concurrent users since August, it seems the deal with Microsoft has at least helped Capcom out significantly, although it’s unclear yet whether this will be enough for the game to be considered a success. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised by my time with the game – I don’t know whether I’d have been satisfied with it as a full-price purchase, but I certainly had a lot of fun with it as a Game Pass release that my friends and I could all jump onto together.
Exoprimal season three is set to feature a crossover with Monster Hunter in early 2024, which lines up with the 20th anniversary of the Monster Hunter series. Interestingly, in its financial results Capcom declines to report anything about new releases “at this time,” yet suggests that it has at least one “currently unannounced major title” due before the end of the fiscal year that it believes will help it push from its current 22.6 million units sold up to an annual target of 45 million.
While there’s not yet an indication of what that game is, the next entry in the Monster Hunter series seems like a strong possible candidate – perhaps we’ll hear word of it when The Game Awards rolls around at the end of the year, with a release early in 2024? That would certainly line up with Capcom’s preference for launch dates early in the year, and I’d be an extremely happy bunny to get a new Monster Hunter game in my hands. For now, however, this remains pure speculation. We’ll have to wait in hope.
If you’re tempted to jump in and find out what Exoprimal’s second season (which features the Street Fighter 6 Exoprimal collaboration), be sure to check out our Exoprimal tier list of the best Exosuits, and how to beat the Exoprimal final boss so you can unlock its endgame modes.