In the Japanese publisher's recently released fiscal year 2008 report, Capcom outlined its plans for future growth. Particular attention was paid to expanding in the oversees markets. Capcom commented that it would consider more partnerships in the Western sphere, and that it is seeking to change the company's sales proportions from 53 percent Japan, 38 percent North America and 19 percent Europe to 20 percent Japan, 50 percent North America and 30 percent Europe.

"In order to ensure stable and sustained growth, we must expand our business in the larger size overseas market where there is ample room for growth," reads the investors report. "We therefore have no plans to merge with any major Japanese video game publishers or toy manufacturers in the foreseeable future since it is unlikely to contribute to sales expansion overseas. Such a merger could also restrict our licensing business opportunities."

"On the other hand, we are aggressively going after acquisition and partnership opportunities if they benefit our goal of creating gaming content with universal market appeal," continues the report. "As I mentioned earlier, K2 Corporation with whom we have developed titles for overseas was made our wholly owned subsidiary during this fiscal year. Our aggressive strategy on merger and acquisition has already begun producing good results. For example, our mobile game business in North America acquired during the last fiscal year posted a monthly surplus during this fiscal year. We will continue to realize mergers and acquisitions through friendly means in order to create more gaming content."

Along with this shift in priorities to the West, Capcom also announced that the company will not release console exclusive titles as it has in the past. "As a measure to counter the soaring costs of software development for the next-generation consoles, which has been a cause for concern, we have shifted our focus to the multi-platform strategy," stated the company. "Furthermore, in order to make this shift possible, we have implemented the company-wide use of our own base technology for software development tool, 'MT Framework.' Our overseas expansion structure is also now well established as we gave priority to reinforcing North American and European sales subsidiaries. By ideally linking the entrance (the base technology for software development) and the exit (the global sales structure) of the business, we were able to make optimal use of our capabilities to create original content, which is our forte, and achieve phenomenal success."

Thanks to Shacknews for the tip.