Capcom Takes Aim at the West

Expect more games made to attract you. New screens for Lost Planet, Okami and Dead Rising inside.

Where once they dominated the games industry, Japanese game companies are finding they need to reinvent themselves in the face of a bulging Europe and North America and a shrinking Japan. Sega started down this path recently and now Resident Evil creator Capcom is striking out too.

Dead Rising

"What we're trying to do is take a more global view to the products that we create," Capcom's Mark Beaumont told GameSpot reporter Curt Feldman in an exclusive one-on-one interview after a company event in Las Vegas last week.

At the event, Capcom rolled out some of the games we can expect over the next year or so, and they run the gamut from titles for mobile phones to others for current-gen systems and Xbox 360.

Lost Planet

Standout titles you can expect over the next while from Capcom include Lost Planet (360), Dead Rising (360), Okami (PS2), Ultimate Ghosts & Goblins (PSP) and Power Stone (PSP).

Part of the company's reaching out to Western audiences takes the form of more mobile phone games, which have already proved popular in Japan.

Okami

Similar to Sega, Capcom will start developing games in the West, but this won't be a big part of the company's output - not now, at least. Capcom will also change its popular games to better suit Western audiences, by appealing more to European and American cultures, whatever that may be.

Games are becoming less and less of a sure thing, but this isn't something that's scaring Capcom away.

"The industry is faced with many challenges," Beaumont said at the event, as reported by GameSpot journalist Curt Feldman, "but we look at that as an opportunity."

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games