Speaking to the Financial Times, Capcom President Haruhiro Tsujimoto has stated that the Japanese publisher / developer will no longer developed new IP outside Japan. Recent games such as Bionic Commando and Dark Void, both of which were developed by non-Japanese studios, have failed to live up to expectations despite large investments in their development and marketing. Refering to these projects, Tsujimoto stated that “the new titles where development was led from abroad didn’t do so well.”
As one of the potential causes for the disapointing performance of these games, Tsujimoto was quoted as saying that problems were “caused by inadequate know-how about supervising outsourced operations and overly optimistic plans.” It is unclear if this decision will affect the rate at which Capcom releases new games or franchises.
The most recent, high-profile IP that was developed for next-generation consoles by the Capcom’s Japanese studio was Lost Planet, released in January 2007.
Is Dead Rising made in Japan or in the West? Really, that was the last Capcom game that really wowed me. SF4 was really good too.
As far as I know, Dead Rising was indeed developed by a Japanese studio of Capcom. The sequel is being developed by a Western studio though…
Based on impressions I’ve heard from people who’ve demoed Dead Rising 2, they say the transition has been seamless. You’d never know the franchise switched studios. In fact I’ve heard the sequel is superior to the first.
Capcom really didn’t give western development much of a chance though if they’re completely tossing new IP development over here. Dark Void had a few neat concepts like the vertical combat but overall it was just really bad. The dev team had to know it wasn’t a good game.
Perhaps something is Lost in Translation between Capcom in Japan and their western studios.
Oversight that is what was lost in translation. They said it themselves, but when you launch short games with horrible controls, or gimped gameplay, then no one is going to buy your product when they read or watch the reviews. It really is Capcom’s fault for the games tanking, by no overseeing the project better.
But I want to see what they come up with.