PSN outage: Capcom stand by Sony

Just after Sony forecast its PSN related $171 estimated loss for the year, veteran game developer Capcom expressed its faith in Sony to recover.

In a set of financial projections released earlier today, Capcom -- who are responsible for the Street Fighter, Devil May Cry and Resident Evil franchises -- revealed that while it had significantly lowered its previous sales projections and profit estimates for the financial year, it did believe that Sony would make good on its previous promise to return to profit by the end of the next financial year.

Through its 53 releases last year, Capcom reportedly accumulated roughly 20.5 million software sales. In its recently released sales projections, the company has estimated that it will only garner 18 million sales from this year's 55 games -- a significant drop considering the PlayStation Network was down for less than two months.

Strangely, despite the lower expectations, the company still estimated that of the 18 million sales, it expected eight million to come from its 16 PlayStation 3 titles -- an increase from the 6.2 million sales the console spoke for last year.

One possible reason for Capcom's continued faith in Sony could stem from the forthcoming release of its HD Monster Hunter Portable 3 on the PS3. Part of the soon to be released batch of PSP games to be available on Sony's new portable service, the new release will allow players to play the game on both their PSP and PlayStation 3 -- even being able to carry over their saved games.

While Sony will without a doubt be delighted that at least one big-name developer still has faith in it, it is still a matter of debate whether Capcom's faith will be vindicated -- many analysts are still torn whether Sony will be able to recover its reputation and pre-PSN outage selling power.