Inafune to leave Capcom?

[abigsmurf]

http://blog.daletto.net/inafunekeiji/

Top post says it'll be his last as president, he has said before that he was deeply unhappy with his job. Victim of Capcom's outsourcing? Annoyed at the games industry in general? His placement in the Megaman Legends 3 design competition?



Seems to be a bit of an exodus of talent from Capcom in recent years. Bit of a shame the way the company has decided to go from 'leading the Japanese games industry by example' to 'lets just copy Western games and outsource everything'

[Flabio]

Bit of a shame the way the company has decided to go from 'leading the Japanese games industry by example' to 'lets just copy Western games and outsource everything'

They're making a lot more money with their current strategy though.

[abigsmurf]

Having all their core franchises revolve more and more around being Western styled action shooters makes for an extreme lack of diversity though. Leaves them incredibly vulnerable to market saturation.

[Sketcz]

About ****ing time. The guy may have made Megaman but he's now little more than a talentless hack whose biggest achievement in recent years is his continuous bitching about Japan's domestic market and Capcom itself. The man is a failtrain of bull**** MEGATON quotes designed to annoy people.

He was only a producer on Dead Rising and other games - most of his creative time it seems is spent bad-mouthing everyone else.

The guy is such a shameless Jankee (Japanese Yankee - analogous to White Japanese) fanboy of the west, I hope he takes his massive hard-on for all things western right over to Cliff Bleszinski's desk so the two can make out and leave everyone else to their business.

EDIT:
like they said on the WAHP podcast - it's only a matter of time before he was demoted Japanese style to window cleaning duty in the company, after he publicly badmouthed the company.

I’d like to think so, but it’s becoming more difficult. I’m strong-arming a lot of things through, but I’m not sure how much more I can do. I don’t share the same management vision as the company.

I want to make games that travel overseas, but Capcom hasn’t taken globalization seriously. I want to study how Westerners live, and make games that appeal to them.

You know, it's like Jeremy Blaustein said: Japan made the best games when she was unconscious of her affect on the west.

They will never be able to be a better west than the west itself - and outsourcing isn't the answer. Like Takeyasu Sawaki behind El Shaddai said: As a Japanese creator, I want to make something that only Japanese people can make. I don't want to follow the European people's way.

Each side has its strengths it should work to and with, not fight against.

Like I said, about time Inafune dropped off.

[Flabio]

I do agree that 'making games only the Japanese can make' is the way to go, but if the games don't end up also being 'games the non-Japanese might buy' then your company is going to rapidly go down the toilet (assuming we're talking PS3/360 dev here, which is orders of magnitude more expensive than Wii/3DS dev).

The Japanese industry isn't big enough anymore to self-sustain like it used to.

[Neon Ignition]

All those drawings break any hopes I held for Legends 3...

[SuperBeatBoy]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-10-29-keiji-inafune-quits-capcom

Hes leaving at the end of the month.

[abigsmurf]

All those drawings break any hopes I held for Legends 3...

The chosen design is fairly nice, guess it was picked because it's similar to the .exe games. Has to be said though, Inafune's design there is really half arsed considering this was going to be his pet project.

[Kongster]

Inafune won't be that big a loss. The real talent that have left long before like Akiman, Bengus, Funamizu, Kamiya and Mikami are much bigger losses.

[Rep]

The chosen design is fairly nice, guess it was picked because it's similar to the .exe games. Has to be said though, Inafune's design there is really half arsed considering this was going to be his pet project.

It's yet another design based on the Reploid Zero character (long yellow hair, red/white clothing). It's hardly surprising it didn't win.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Thats exactly what i thought when i saw it.

[Team Andromeda]

He was only a producer on Dead Rising and other games - most of his creative time it seems is spent bad-mouthing everyone else.

A Producer is one of the most important people in video game development , is it not. People rave about the likes of Yu Suzuki or Shigeru Miyamoto and for most games they we just producers, yet get loads of credit for it.

I think Inafune has produced some wonderful games at Capcom, this and last Gen . Lost Planet to me its an incredible game , and I really liked and enjoyed the likes of Rome, Dead Rising, Onimusha 3, I really wished he was the main producer on LP II


And everything he said about Japanese 3rd party development is spot on, Japan next gen development is hopelessly out of touch on multi platform development, out of touch with tech , and years and year behind the west for On-line gaming; Not every Japanese developer granted, but quite a lot are

[Sketcz]

Aren't creative directors and designers more important?

This raises a good point - is there a site or article online somewhere which quantifies the input from various official positions in game development?

[abigsmurf]

Producers are like producers for hollywood films.

Sometimes they're heavily involved in all aspects throughout the creation process, other times they're just the guy who picks the staff and signs the cheques.

[Strider]

The Japanese industry is dead.