Silver linings are (potentially) two-fold though. With the focus taken away from the west, it now transpires that Capcom Japan might finally be about to drop some more original ideas on us. Remember them? I used to like Capcom's original ideas, and I miss seeing new ones. Also, the way in which the west is to treat old IP could turn out to be pretty damn exciting in the future. Could also be terrible, but hey, the potential is there.
Speaking at GDC last week, Capcom US Vice-President Christian Svennson spake thusly on the subject of IP and its comparitive newness:
"When I say no more new IP, I mean no new IP in the West. I think you will see us actually taking some major new IP risks"
"Major"? "Risks"? Why, this sounds borderline experimental. I've previously moaned at length about Capcom's recent loss of vitality. It's been one of my favourite third-party developers since the days of the NES, but lately seems to have fallen into the same trap of tried-and-tested safe bets as everyone else. A push for new ideas from its core Japanese teams is exactly what it needs, particularly in the wake of Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune's departure. It should hopefully do a great deal to stop me moaning aboutthis, too.
As for what the west will be doing, Svennson was good enough to detail this:
"The remit at the moment is still to leverage existing classic Capcom brands - I think you see that in bigger ways than perhaps you've seen from us before. New IP for the near term? No go.
"We have loads of things which we're still noodling which we haven't touched in years and years and years. We really still think there's value in trying some stuff with them. Obviously we're heavily reliant right now on a narrower range of core brands."
Franchise-whoring then, Chris?
"We're looking at ways to not over-saturate the market with them. I think that care has to be taken to avoid brand fatigue."
Phew, had me going there for a minute. Carry on then, sir. Here's a quick tip though. If you intend to avoid over-saturation by bringing back brands we haven't seen in years, may I suggest you start with Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, Strider, Viewtiful Joe and Power Stone? That'd be grand. Full disc release or download, either is good. Just don't balls 'em up.
Any of you lot have any other suggestions?
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
March 11th, 2011
