In an internal interview for Capcom's investor relations site, Jun Takeuchi - of Lost Planet and Resident Evil 5 fame - has gone all stick-in-the-mud.

"The core elements of [Lost Planet 2] were developed in Japan, while the music and some of the language details were handled overseas", he said. "Cultural differences don't allow for the smooth collaboration between Japan and developers overseas."

Well, they won't with an attitude like that!

Jun Takeuchi [Capcom] [image]

Here's Takeuchi discussing the winter 2009 Lost Planet 2 with Edge magazine's interviewer. Note that Lost Planet 2 is designed to be played in co-op and supports online play. And note that online gaming isn't very popular in Japan.

Edge asks: "Sticking with co-op, do you find it strange that Japan has one of the best broadband infrastructures in the world but online gaming is yet to really take off on consoles?"

After mentioning the rare popularity of co-op Monster Hunter and online Final Fantasy XI, Takeuchi says:

I just can't understand why Japanese gamers are so reluctant to play networked games. I find overseas players to be more curious — they go towards what they think looks, sounds or feels fun by themselves. In Japan, I have the feeling users are just waiting for us to guide, to feed them with fun things. The problem is that the online experience is something that requires users to make a move first. Nobody is going to open the door for you. You need to decide to go into it by yourself. I want to create in Japanese gamers that curiosity for going online. Because of course you can enjoy the game alone, no problem, but as soon as you are with a friend coordinating, you enter into a whole other dimension.

That interview runs in the new Edge issue, which covers the 2009 Tokyo Game Show and offers that new spin on the familiar topic of the modern struggles of the Japanese gaming industry. The issue is available in the U.K. and available to U.S. subscribers (like me) now.

Jun Takeuchi Q&A [Edge Magazine Issue #208[

With that new Sony wand motion controller, there might be just that.

"Speaking to other developers in Japan," Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi tells game site 1UP, "I've heard a few of them say they were delighted by the Sony motion controller because they can just port over their Wii titles to the PS3."

That doesn't mean Capcom is delighted. These are other developers, you know. Why wouldn't Capcom be excited about the chance for more ports?

Porting — even between the Wii and the PS3 — does ensure more people get to play a game, which is always a good thing. We're not playing graphics here, folks! We're playing games.

Takeuchi Interview [1UP via VG247]

The news came after a member of the audience asked if there would be more co-operative vehicles in the game in addition to the three-player mech we were shown during a brief demo. In response, Takeuchi explained that there would be more co-op vehicles, and some of them would fly.

After the panel was over I confirmed with Takeuchi's translating partner that yes, this was indeed new news and no, they might not have been supposed to say that.

According to Capcom's Takeuchi, when Capcom was developing Devil May Cry 4, he thought this was the Xbox 360's limit. But again, when they were making Resident Evil 5, the game fit within those boundaries, and ditto for the upcoming Lost Planet 2. "I was like," says Takeuchi, "'This hardware is deep!'" He goes on to say that he was surprised and that "This is good hardware."

While From Software's Masanori Takeuchi is not disparaging about the Microsoft hardware — but rather, the situation it puts Japanese developers in. According to Takeuchi, developing for the Xbox 360 is "difficult". "Japanese game makers want to make games for Japan," he explains. But things like the low install base in Japan mean that developers must think about creating titles for a larger audience. "The fact that you must make games for a global audience," he explains, "makes the Xbox 360 a difficult platform."

Hey, in this sluggish Japanese game industry, making hit games at home isn't easy either.

カプコン竹内「Xbox360は深い」、フロムソフトウェア竹内「Xbox360はキツイ」 [はちま起稿]

Ex-Newsweek reporter Croal wrote about his meeting with RE5 producer Jun Takeuchi in the June 2009 issue of Edge. The column is not available online yet (though a related preceding one is).

For background, Croal had given an interview to my former site MTV Multiplayer, in April of last year, in which he talked about how the first trailer for the Africa-set Resident Evil 5 had struck him differently than anything he'd experienced in the Spain-based Resident Evil 4.

Croal won fans, enemies, friends and critics for his discussion of the trailer. So what happened when he finally sat down with Takeuchi in February at the DICE show?

As he relates in his Edge column, the two men talked about the game's controls, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead and then addressed some of the racial imagery stuff.

Takeuchi talked to Croal about his designers' and artists' research trip to Africa, though the producer couldn't remember which country the members of his team visited. They talked about addressing the complexion of the zombies and the feedback the developers received about these issues as they were making the game. It reads as if no voices were raised, no objects thrown.

In conclusion, Croal wrote:

"And as Takeuchi went on to explain that the enemies with the grass skirts and spears were seeking to defend the ruins from intruders and that he'd been inspired by Indiana Jones movies, I felt like I once again understood where he'd been coming from. That a two-to-three-week trip to unspecified African countries and looking at a number of movies set in Africa alongside pop-cultural inspirations like the Indiana Jones series simply hadn't been enough to sufficiently educate him or the team about he legacy of the imagery that they were tapping in to and, as a result, they'd lost control of their message. That's my take on it, of course; I doubt that the man who sat across from me and thoughtfully answered all of my questions would agree."

There's more in the column, which is on sale on newsstands now and will be at Edge-Online.com in the next month.

And with that, this chapter's closed?

(Full disclosure: I consider Croal a good friend. Furthermore, I played through the first half of RE5 with him on split-screen co-op this past March.)

He will be signing copies of Resident Evil 5, which launches tomorrow in North America and PAL territories.

Thanks for the tip, Chris!

[Pic]

We're still awaiting the press release, which may or may not have more details, but until then why don't you check out the trailer, which was rolled out on Xbox Live only, for yourself to see what new information you can glean.

Japan only makes up six percent of the total global market for game software, he said. Sales, Capcom decided, are made in North America and Europe, so Capcom has started pushing to make 70 percent of their revenue there.

During his talk, entitled Un-Japanese Games: Creating Entertainment for a Global Gaming Audience, Takeuchi walked DICE attendee's through the precarious process of trying to court "foreign" gamers without losing your studio's identity.

While struggling to come up with games that other cultures could enjoy, Capcom realized three things: risk reduction can actually create risk, you have to culturally invest in the market you're wooing, it's not always just about selling more copies of a game.

With Dead Rising and Lost Planet under their belts and apparent success headed their way with Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5, Takeuchi outlined Capcom's Ten Commandments of development. Something, MTV's Stephen Totilo summarizes smartly over on MTV's Multiplayer.

Live Blog: DICE 2009 - Jun Takeuchi, Capcom [G4TV] and DICE 2009: The 10 Commandments of Capcom Development [MTV]

Riccitiello will join Resident Evil 5 director Jun Takeuchi, Chris Cao, creative director of Sony Online Entertainment Austin, and Fallout 3 designer Todd Howard on the creative side.

Also yapping behind podiums will be GameStop COO J. Paul Raines and NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier, as well as many others.

It should be a rollicking good time full of awesome industry speak. We had a fantastic time at DICE '08. So many memories!

For the full line up of industry bigwigs dropping expert knowledge on people who paid to get in, check out the official DICE web site.

2009 D.I.C.E. SUMMIT ANNOUNCES FIRST SPEAKERS [DICE Summit]

Currently, the team is focused on getting RE5 out the door (and hopefully minimizing long Devil May Cry 4 style load times). What's next for Takeuchi? The producer, while not confirming or announcing anything, did offer a very diplomatic comment regarding a possible remake of fan favorite Resident Evil 2. "You know, I think there is the demand for it. It's certainly something we would like to consider and think about," said Takeuchi, "but, quite frankly our hands are full with Resident Evil 5 right now, and trying to get that out of the door, so we're going to have to put all of our focus on Resident Evil 5 for the moment." Yeah, let the Capcom execs think about remakes.

Resident Evil 5 [Eurogamer via 1Up]

The new "action" layout is more streamlined and intuitive for those more familiar with Western-style shooters. And for those more familiar with, say, RE4 controls, the game offers a "standard" layout. The new action layout also lets characters strafe when they move — something that RE players have long been asking for.

However, since this is Resident Evil, it's not possible to simultaneously strafe and point and shoot. That makes the addition of strafe in the action controls seem somewhat half-baked. Sure, this is Resident Evil, but the action controls strafe doesn't alter gameplay: Players are still running to an empty corner and shooting and then running to another corner. A shame the action controls don't allow strafing and shooting.

Which does Takeuchi prefer? "I like the newer control layout better. But we're offering both layouts for Japanese gamers who prefer the Resident Evil 4-style layout. Some of the hardcore Japanese gamers probably will like the new controls as well." But Takeuchi says that it was necessary to bridge that East-West controller gap.

Action control layout below.

...the footwear and gloves the main character wears are all based on real items. We contacted the makers of those items to find out all the little details that go into making them, that way players don't have a sense of the game being completely divorced from reality. And that's how we were able to realistically recreate the proper specs for the items used in the game. When you look at the trailer, you see the main character's clothing and all the fibers that comprise it.

We really paid attention to the details. We made it so that the fabric of his shirt actually gives the illusion of breathing like its real-life counterpart; it is also decidedly different from the heavier material that hangs down below it.

Finally! Gaming gets BREATHING SHIRTS. It's about time.

Jun Takeuchi Interview [Capcom IR]

First of all, we at Capcom, when we set out to make a game, we make it on a world-wide basis.

We make a game that people all over the world are going to buy. And I think that that way of thinking is one of the reasons for our successes.

Maybe at other developers, they first of all look at the Japanese market, and then say, "Oh, we can also sell this in the west."

They develop it first for the internal market, for the Japanese market; but we at Capcom, we look at it first of all as selling something for the whole world.

The second reason, I think, is that we in Capcom are based in Osaka, unlike most of the other Japanese developers, who are based largely in Tokyo.

And I think that gives us — we have a lot of creative people, and the atmosphere and feeling in the workplace is a little bit different, and I think that gives us a little bit of originality, and allows us also to make something that's technically very high level.

That's right, next time you play a Capcom game, just remember: It's creators were probably powered by delicious takoyaki or okonomiyaki. Mmm mmm good.

Co-Op Creators: Resident Evil 5's Anpo and Takeuchi Tag-Team Interview [Gamasutra] [Pic]

Ask the Capcom Developers: Questions for Resident Evil 5 Producer, Takeuchi-san [Capcom Blog]

While 1UP may take Capcom prez Kenzo Tsujimoto's comments to indicate a end of fiscal year release window—it ends March 31, 2008—Chris Kohler at Wired casts doubt on the translation, putting it after the end of the fiscal year.

It looks like it's pretty clear if we look at Capcom's Consolidated Financial Statements. If everyone would please turn to page 53 of their statements, we'll see that Capcom doesn't have a single PS3 title scheduled for FY '07. That would certainly mean no Resident Evil 5. Unless... no, let's not go there. Michael McWhertor

Capcom Investor Relations [Capcom.jp]