I don't think Capcom pulled a Squaresoft, exactly. From what I hear, the movie played rather fast and loose with the Resident Evil, and looking over the credit list, I don't see any Capcom people involved. In fact, I see no Japanese names at all. This leads me to believe that Capcom merely sold the license. I'm not sure that the license is worth all that much, though. The Tomb Raider license certainly must have cost a pretty penny, but Resident Evil is not on the same level of recognition.
A quick search through the internet reveals that the total US gross for the movie was $39,532,308. I don't know how much the movie cost to make, but that's a pretty small gross. We can generally assume that the movie pulled in the same amount around the world as it did in the US.
Either way you look at it, the movie did not do well although it wasn't a Street Fighter style flop. But once again, that probably didn't affect Capcom.
I'm inclined to think that the problem may be more on the business side of things. Capcom's games certainly sell well enough. Resident Evil on the GameCube was somewhat of a disappointment, but Devil May Cry and Onimusha, to name a couple, are huge. The problem might not be with revenue but with cost. Maybe Capcom is spending too much money making these games.
And of course, they make some bizarre business decisions. For example, Steel Battalion. It appears to be a very well made game, on that Capcom is spending lots of resources on. But it's guaranteed to flop because it requires a $150 peripheral making the cost of the game about $200. Why is Capcom doing this? To show token support to the Xbox? They're a business. Businesses don't do things like that if they stay alive.
I have heard that this is Capcom's first big loss in a long time, though, so maybe they'll survive. I'm sure they've got a good amount of money stored up from profits past.
But if, and that's a very big if, Capcom gets bought out, I predict that it will be by Sony. Capcom's biggest sellers have been on the PS2, and Sony is a Japanese company. That matters. Given the amount of support that Capcom has given to the Xbox, I just don't think there is much love lost between Capcom and Microsoft. Nintendo is probably not just financially unable to purchase Capcom but probably won't even try. They tend to go after smaller groups and build them up into big ones (look at how big any of Nintendo's second parties were when they got purchased).
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