The ex-Capcom, now Zenimax employed auteur designer Shinji Mikami has been shedding some light on his career in interviews with Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu (via 1Up), with one of the more interesting tidbits coming to light only recently. In speaking on his entry into the game industry as a college graduate, Mikami reveals that Capcom wasn’t the first company to approach him with a career possibility.
“A friend of mine had found a flyer advertising some kind of job fair-slash-buffet party Capcom was holding at the Hilton and he gave it to me because he knew I liked games,” said Mikami. “I went mainly because I wanted to eat at the Hilton for free, but once I started talking to Capcom people, really getting in depth about the work they do, I thought it sounded pretty neat. So I applied to both Capcom and Nintendo, and it turned out the second round of interviews for both companies were held on the same day, and I chose Capcom. It’s likely for the better because I probably never had a chance with Nintendo — it took a company like Capcom to pick me up.”
“After [Resident Evil 1] was done, they made me into a producer and I had to step away from the front lines of development,” he explained. “There was a time when I wanted to leave Capcom because of that — I joined Capcom in order to create things, and I thought that going away from that would be counterproductive. It was hard, not being directly involved with the development process.”
What do you think a Nintendo-employed Shinji Mikami would be like? How would that have affected the Big N’s lineup if he had been as large an influence as he had been in other studios? Give us your thoughts below!
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