Inafune: Japanese and Western collaboration causes infighting
Dark Void and Bionic Commando failed because developers and publishers played blame game says exec
Ex-Capcom producer Keiji Inafune has said that Capcom's attempts at creating new IP at the end of the last decade failed because collaboration between Japanese and Western companies leads to each party blaming the other for mistakes, resulting in sub-standard products.
Speaking to Joystiq, the Concept founder explained that both Dark Void and Bionic Commando failed to achieve success because the disparate arms of development meant that nobody took responsibility for fixing errors.
"[It's] very, very simple: The publisher was Japanese and the developer was foreign," the Megaman creator claims. "Even inside Japan, when you work in two different companies, they always blame each other for any small mistakes, so that's pretty much what happened in those two games - blaming each other."
Inafune also claimed that he had made a conscious effort to prevent this sort of ruction when creating Dead Rising for Capcom - a game which went on to be developed by a Canadian studio.
"When I was making Dead Rising, I told my staff, 'Don't ever blame the other guys. Do your best, and just keep doing your work'." However, since leaving the publisher, Inafune says that he has heard that "it's getting back like before - blaming each other," telling Joystiq that "I'm kind of hoping that someone will come forth and say, 'Okay, I'm gonna take over from here.'"
Earlier this year, Inafune revealed that, at the end of the PlayStation 2 era, Capcom instigated a policy of making 70-80 per cent of all new titles sequels to existing franchises in order to control financial risk.
With recent forays into frsh IP having gone somewhat awry, and new iterations of Resident Evil, Street Fighter and Dead Rising all having performed well, another round of restriction on IP experimentation may well be underway.
I like what Inafune has to say and I see his point.
Posted:A year ago