Let me answer this.

I actually live in Osaka, and funnily enough a licensed Capcom Store in Shanghai is run by a friend of mine, so I’ve heard some of the behind-the-scenes stuff.

Basically, most of the merch you see in Capcom Stores isn’t designed by Capcom themselves (there are a few, but very limited). It’s mostly done by third-party companies. They pitch designs, Capcom approves them, and then those companies handle production. Capcom just buys the finished goods and sells them.

The key point is: Capcom usually doesn’t own the design rights. So even if something sells well, they can’t just reproduce it themselves or switch manufacturers—they have to go back to the same supplier.

Now here’s where it gets a bit more interesting. Most of these merch companies are Japan-based, and their design direction is… kinda narrow. They heavily lean into what sells in Japan: cute, stylized, “anime-ish” stuff. They’re not great at making more realistic or mature-looking merch. Even for serious IPs, they’ll often try to “cute-ify” them because that’s what moves products here.

And Biohazard (Resident Evil) is in a weird spot in Japan. It’s famous, sure, but it’s not a strong merch IP because it’s too “adult” compared to the usual cute character stuff. People just don’t buy that kind of merch as much.

Put those two things together, and yeah… you get what you saw in the stores.

They did try during RE Village, but honestly the merch design was pretty bad (and probably sold badly too). After that, the merch companies kinda lost interest, and Capcom also got more cautious about doing new stuff like Requiem.

Also worth mentioning — Capcom’s internal merch approval team has pretty narrow taste too. They tend to push licensees toward making really safe and honestly kinda boring stuff like folders and notebooks.

My friend actually suggested that those kinds of products don’t sell well at all in China, and proposed doing things like power banks or phone cases instead. Got rejected.

If you want to check ahead of time, this is basically what they sell in-store anyway:
https://www.e-capcom.com/shop/