Ex-Capcom producer Okamoto grows new studio

Yoshiki Okamoto, a former Capcom producer who was one of the key figures behind the Resident Evil franchise, has recruited eleven people to work at a newly founded development studio which is provisionally called Okatuku.

Okamoto-san, who left Capcom last month after disagreements with the company's management over the future of the publisher, was offered a position as a dean at one of Japan's biggest game development colleges, but decided to continue developing games instead.

His new studio is working on a number of new concepts, and is expected to develop games for multiple different consoles - perhaps continuing the love affair which Capcom's development staff, if not its senior executives, have with Nintendo's GameCube hardware.

Rumours circulated last week that another of Capcom's big players, Shinji Mikami, may have left the company to form his own studio - however, we have yet to see any confirmation of this beyond a gossip column in a Japanese magazine, which tends to suggest that it was untrue.

Polygon