14 DAY TRIAL // A recent report states that Capcom will try to increase the output of titles in its major franchises. The Resident Evil series is the main target here, but Capcom is aiming to get out three or four games per year from all of its big franchises, as opposed to the current two per year. It seems that the Japanese gaming giant wants to outsource some it work to American and European studios to reduce development time from four years to three years or less.
This report was published by Nikkei and translated by Andriasang and it was talking about various other publishers trying to reduce the time triple-A games take to develop. Capcom in particular wants to deliver more title to avoid the problems of last year when its sales and earning went under the floor. Curiously enough, two of Capcom biggest commercial failures in the recent years were Dark Void and Bionic Commando, two titles that were created by Western companies.
The company plans to minimize this risk by commissioning Western studios only for Capcom own Intellectual Properties and not create new ones. For example, Canadian-based Blue Castle Studios is working on Dead Rising 2. Moreover, it has been rumored that Ninja Theory, the developer behind Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and Heavenly Sword, is currently at work on Devil May Cry 5. This has not been neither confirmed nor denied by Capcom at the time.
Mega Man online is also being created at an external studio called NeoWiz, this time in South Korea. The titles is 3D side-scrolling massively multiplayer online game set in the Mega Man universe. It is currently announced only in Japan, but Capcom has also trademarked Mega Man Universe, maybe the title's international name.