14 DAY TRIAL // Capcom and its line up of games would not have gotten the popularity they now enjoy in the West if the company had not taken the decision to develop titles for the Microsoft made Xbox 360 gaming console. The statement was made by Keiji Inafune, one of the most important developers working for Capcom.
Inafune, who has created successes like Mega Man and Dead Rising, said that “I think I can only get away with saying this now, but I really thought that the using the Xbox was [the] only way to break into overseas markets, and I took that hypothesis all the way. In the end, I am very happy that I did so.”
The decision to abandon exclusivity to the PlayStation platforms was not an easy one, as an internal debate raged at Capcom on whether to embrace or not the Xbox 360, which had not yet confirmed its “potential.” Traditionally, Japanese developers are more likely to create games for platforms created by Sony and Nintendo, which are seen as more approachable than Microsoft’s.
Inafune believes that titles like Dead Rising and Lost Planet, for which a sequel has just been announced, have proved to be the most popular with Western audiences and allowed the company to offer more and more of its more Japanese titles on the markets of the United States and Europe. Now, Capcom has a multiplatform and multimarket strategy, which allow it to fare better than other Japanese developers.
Capcom has just released Street Fighter IV on the Xbox 360 and on the PlayStation 3, and the game has posted very good sales figures, moving 2 million copies. The title is seen as leading a revival of the fighting game genre and both casual and hardcore players praise the gameplay mechanics.