Although Monster Hunter Wilds boasted a strong start after its release in late February with a whopping 10 million sales in under three months, things have slowed down quite a bit for the action RPG – and Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto cites an interesting potential reason.
At the tail end of July, we reported that Monster Hunter Wilds sales dropped from millions to under 500,000 in mere months. We brought up the game's plummeting Steam reviews, which largely boiled down to poor PC optimization (an ongoing issue as reported by players, sadly) – but that might not be the only reason behind the recent Monster Hunter game's falling sales or longtime series fans' lack of interest in giving it a go.
Capcom lead Haruhiro Tsujimoto says as much in a new interview with Nikkei (translated by Automaton), in which he suggests that Sony's PlayStation 5 console might be to blame due to its lofty price. When accounting for accessories, monthly subscriptions like PlayStation Plus to access online play (a necessity for a game such as Monster Hunter Wilds), and of course, the system itself, comfortably owning a PS5 can cost users nearly $700.
When you factor in Monster Hunter Wilds' own base $70 price tag, too, things get even more expensive – and that's why Tsujimoto believes sales aren't as good as they could or should be for the game. It's cheaper to play one of the older, best Monster Hunter games after all, with titles like Monster Hunter World (an entry that boasts hundreds of hours of content) coming in at just $29.99 full price or dropping as low as $9.89 when discounted.
Thankfully, however, it seems that as Tsujimoto is conscious of the high prices himself, fans may see more Monster Hunter Wilds discounts come in the future as part of a new strategy formulated by Capcom to increase game sales throughout the year. This could mean more significant strikethroughs on the base $70 price point – and not just for PS5 players, but those on Xbox Series X|S and PC as well.
Be sure to check out our Monster Hunter Wilds review, or browse through our roundup of the Monster Hunter Wilds weapons while you're here.
