Capcom Done with "Western Devs"

[Rock Raiyu]

Disenchanted with long-distance relationships, Capcom has decided to develop all major new game IP at home in Japan. Company president Haruhiro Tsujimoto said he would drop Western studios entirely if there weren't so many games to make with so few resources.

"Our experience with Bionic Commando has demonstrated the difficulty of outsourcing the development of new titles to overseas companies," said Tsujimoto over Christmas, reported by Kotaku.

"Nevertheless, we cannot develop a sufficient number of titles without using the resources of these companies. This is why we plan to continue using these alliances.

"We are considering ways to separate the roles of activities in Japan and overseas," he added. "We plan to develop new titles primarily in Japan. Overseas companies may be used mostly to develop titles for existing game series with well-established characters and universal themes. Overseas companies will also handle certain parts and/or line-ups of such games."

Swedish studio GRIN, maker of Bionic Commando, closed in August last year because of an "unbearable cashflow situation". BC was released in May but had little impact either critically or commercially.

Tsujimoto becomes the second high-profile Capcom 'name' to condemn a Japan-West collaboration in recent weeks; Lost Planet and Resident Evil maker Jun Takeuchi said "cultural differences" did not allow for "smooth" partnerships.

News Source: EuroGamer

 

[blackdragonbaham]

it's a pity that bionic commando didn't satisfy the expactation capcom had before, but i think it is a bit jaundiced to give all the fault for the gameconcept not being successful enough to the western game developers. bionic commando was a complete new game concept, and it is allways difficult to say before the release and the purchases if the game which is developed will be establish and will be accepted by the gamers community. we have seen a lot of good games, with innovative gamestructure or/ and graphics fail and nobody can really say why. whats also a important factor is piracy which decreases the sales of the games, and if those are to great it might seem like there wasn't a big interest on the game, but people are just too lazy to spend money for it.
i didn't tplay the game and don't know what quality it has but couldn't it also be that the game just wasn't good enough to be well bought, but it's questionable if this would have been different if the development have been in japan.