Capcom Cull Western Devs On New IP

Despite declaring an 866% YoY net-profit increase, Capcom have seemingly learnt their lesson when it comes to trusting Western developers with new properties, telling analysts that all new IP from now on will be run from Japan. The decision is based on poor critical and commercial response to some of Capcom’s newer – and Western led – games such as Bionic Commando and Dark Void.

Bionic Commando, widely regarded as one of the smellier stinkers of this generation after it sold a paltry 27,000* units in the US at launch (Metacritic quotes a decidedly average 71% though Play Magazine did give it 95%!) was followed by a lacklustre reception to the initially promising jet-pack sporting Dark Void – a game which has managed to sell roughly 120,000 copies across all platforms. Hardly a trailblazer. It also garnered an even lower aggregate score of 58% than that of Bionic Commando.

As reported by Gamasutra, Capcom have declared:

“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.”

The spokesperson continued:

“We plan to develop new titles primarily in Japan.”

So, this is not to say Capcom won’t work with Western developers again in the future. The company will, however, only be trusting them with ”well-established characters and universal themes” and that “overseas companies will also handle certain parts and/or lineups of such games.”

*Bionic Commando went on to shift somewhere in the region of 370,000 units in total. It was its surprisingly low up-take upon launch which caused such concern to its publisher.