Resident Evil Hits Wii Platinum Times Two...Nearly News

Capcom has today become the latest in a string of publishers to post their financial results, and has revealed that the Resident Evil franchise continues to be just as strong on Wii as other platforms.

In the months between September and December 2007, global sales of Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition topped one million units, following the title's success on GameCube and PlayStation 2 in the past.

But that's not all.

Exclusive to Wii, Capcom also confirmed that Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles also went platinum...well, almost. Despite being predicted to sell around 650,000 units, the on-rails shooter sold over 950,000 copies, breaking through all of the publisher's expectations. Capcom is also readying further support for Nintendo's little white box of tricks when it announced at the tail end of last year that it's working on Monster Hunter 3 for Wii.

The Monster Hunter series has continued to be successful for Capcom, with Monster Hunter Freedom 2 on PSP became the popular title on Sony's handheld in Japan last year, and second across all formats, selling 1.5 million units.

Anyhow, back to the financials.

During the first nine months of the 2007/08 fiscal year, which ran from April 1st 2007 to December 31st 2007, net sales in Capcom's Home Video Games sector rose by nearly a quarter from 25.01 billion Yen (£119.5 million) to 30.85 billion (£147.4 million). Operating income also saw the publisher in good stead, increasing year on year from 4.37 billion Yen (£20.9 million) to 6.04 billion Yen (£28.9 million), a staggering rise of 38.2%.

Hopefully the near-platinum status of Umbrella Chronicles will mean that Wii gamers will get their hands on another instalment in the future.