Capcom: Japanese gaming market in danger of fading

"I have to go now. Japanese game developers NEED ME."

Capcom has been one of biggest (and most successful) proponents of propping up and tapping into "Western" development for projects, even if the "West" is not quite trusted to produce new IP for the publisher these days. This drive to better establish development fronts outside of Japan was deemed very necessary by Capcom, feeling that their native Japanese gaming market is by no means the juggernaut it once was.

Indeed, Capcom's head of global research and development (and the force behind the Mega Man, Onimusha and Dead Rising series) Keiji Inafune believes Japanese development is becoming less important to the global gaming scene, and the "West" is more than capable of picking up the slack. In an interview with Videogamer, Inafune quips that Western development is now a prevalent force with far better global appeal, and Japanese production in danger of fading away completely if it can't keep up:

Every year that I come to E3, year in and year out, the one thing I've noticed is that it seems like the Japanese game developer share seems to be getting smaller and smaller. If you look at the major titles, they're now primarily Western. If you look at all the different signs and all the billboards, most of those are Western titles. A lot of the key announcements are also Western titles. I think to myself sometimes, if we keep on this course, the Japanese gaming market will disappear totally. That is one of the valid concerns that I have, which is why as a Japanese publisher, as Capcom, we really want to fight the good fight, and try and make our games work within this more primarily Western market.

Working to become competitive outside of Japan doesn't mean giving everyone the bloody nose, and that's why Capcom has been so keen on collaborating with North American and European talent to deliver products that are more "globally" attractive. Their efforts in the past to this end didn't always amount to success, and Inafune believes both a lack of advice as well as too much hand-holding elsewhere were detrimental factors.

Inafune specifically cites the upcoming Dead Rising 2 as an example where Capcom finally got it right. You may recall that Capcom earlier lamented the first Dead Rising title as being a little "too Japanese" in perhaps a production sense.

We have learned what areas work, what areas don't work, and that has helped us to create Dead Rising 2, which looks very much like the first one, feels like it's got that Capcom essence to it, yet there are a lot of ideas and concepts in that game that a Japanese development staff would not have come up with. So it does take the best of the West and the best of Japanese game aesthetic design. Now that we have that knowledge, we can use that in future Western titles going forward. It's not an easy process. It took some growing pains, but we finally got there.

Capcom's strategy for the West doesn't completely hinge on the success of Dead Rising 2, of course. It's going to remain a process of finding out worked and what didn't through global collaboration.

Oh, and Inafune isn't adverse to making a new Devil May Cry game. The challenge is cooking up something new that everyone out there can enjoy, so it's not just for the sake of making a sequel for a popular franchise.