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Capcom's Okamoto Forms New Developer
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out GamePro's article describing former Capcom boss Yoshiki Okamoto's plans to found a new game development company. You may know Okamoto as "..the designer of Time Pilot, Gyruss (both for Konami), 1942, Final Fight, Street Fighter II, and many other classic Capcom arcade and home titles", and more recently as the producer of the Resident Evil series. According to GamePro, "..his departure from his employer of 19 years was seen by analysts as acceptance of responsibility for disappointing sales for the Resident Evil series", which had dipped since Capcom's single-minded decision to opt for GameCube exclusivity in 2001.
"..the designer of [...] 1942
All I can say is C O N G A R T U L A T I O N S
The guy who made Street Fighter II and Resident Evil (well not really, the father of that series is Mikami Shinji) is going to start his own team from the ground up and use it to make videogames . I expect nothing less than excellence.
It seems like one game can really make or break a game developer/producer. It isn't the first time someone decided to quit, start a new company, or just abandon the industry after a failed game. Seamus Blackley who used be Microsoft's technical officer for the xbox was working on this giant game before he came to microsoft. After the game failed because they physics inside the game were horrible, he just left. He left right after Microsoft started making price cuts for the xbox as well, although he says he just wants to make more games.
Final Fight was at the pinnacle of my arcade experience. I must have poured dozens of quarters into the Mad Gear fighting trio. I was surprised to see Ryu take on Cody at end-game though. Too bad there was no sequel to finish the story.
The CPS-1 boards were easily among my favourite in their day, and although they pretty much all fell into the "shooter" genre, I can't name one that didn't stand out with excellent production & design value.
I hope he does well in future endeavours.
Or maybe since they started releasing remake follwed by remake of the exact same formula, in grand Capcom tradiition?
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Considering the fact that Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil 1 topped GameCube sales charts when they released. But Resident Evil 2-Whatnot didn't might have to do with the fact that Capcom was cheap and lazy and simply ported the PSone games to the GameCube without updating the graphics or adding features, then stuck a $50 (Which has since been decreased to $30 at some stores) price tag.
I wonder why it didn't do well. There's no surprise there. It would have gone the same way on any other platform-the only people who will buy a port of a game with four year old graphics are the obsessive fans-not the mainstream.
And nobody even *think* of blaming the whole "kiddie image" of the GameCube on the lack of sales because most GameCube owners are in the 18-25 demographics, which also happens to be the most aggressively pursued market by all three companies.