Chatting with us at a Monster Hunter Tri preview event in London today, Capcom’s UK PR manager Leo Tan has provided one reason you shouldn’t care which platform the new game will appear on. See, Monster Hunter isn’t a game, kids. It’s a platform itself.
“From a business point of view, Wii is the platform and Monster Hunter is the product that works on the platform,” Leo observed when asked why the threequel wouldn’t hit Xbox 360 or PS3.
“But for me,” he added, “Monster Hunter is the platform. Like everything else is plugged into Monster Hunter! And I don’t care what machine it’s on as long as it’s that universe, as long as it’s got what I’m looking for – everyone gets together, you go out on a mission, you kill your monster, you get your stuff, you take it back, you improve.”
That’s all I want. It could be on anything, it could be on a microwave.”
According to Wikipedia, by the way, over 90% of US households own a microwave oven. Contrast that with the mere 30 million or so Wiis Nintendo’s sold in the territory to date. Do the maths, Capcom accountants. We bet the microwave oven has a higher software attach ratio too.
Leo reckons the PSP, a reasonably strong commercial prospect nowadays in Japan, owes its popularity primarily – even entirely – to Monster Hunter Freedom and its sequels.
“If you look at the PSP sales and you put the graph over Monster Hunter’s release, you’ll see a huge spike,” he said. “I think that some analysts have said that Monster Hunter is solely responsible for PSP continuing to be a commercial success.”
I’m sure Sony wouldn’t tell you that, it’s just something that I’ve read, but it’s definitely a correlation there. It’s more about Monster Hunter players than it is PSP players.”
The game hits Europe in April. Read the full interview here.
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I wouldn’t agree with their statement that the game is bigger than the platform. I think the only franchise that applys to is Pokemon. I will be picking up Monster Hunter Tri for the Wii but i don’t know how much of a “System seller” it’s going to be.
I would love a Monster Hunter game with PS3 graphics, though. I’m surprised Capcom haven’t announced one yet.
I would have preferred to see it on the 360 or PS3, really – the motion controls don’t seem to add much, and think of what they could have achieved with the additional horsepower: larger, more detailed levels, zero load tunnels, etc. Tri should still be pretty special though. I doubt it’ll sell Wiis in the West, but the Japanese will go absolutely screaming mental over it.