Capcom aims to shorten development cycle

Capcom's earnings for fiscal 2011 have come in, and the company has shared details on its plans for development cycles, DLC, and how recent sales may influence its western plans.

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In order to better capitalize on its franchises and increase profits, Capcom feels it needs to speed up its development cycle. According to statements in the most recent earnings report, the developer hopes to turn out games roughly a year faster than its current pace.

"We want to reduce the time needed to develop major titles from the usual three to four years to only two and a half years," said CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto.

"Speeding up development will probably raise the cost. But creating quality content will be vital to Capcom's ability to survive by overcoming intense global competition. We will make substantial investments to develop this content," he promised investors.

Tsujimoto also said the company will be introducing new franchises, and will exercise patience while a new franchise builds up support. "Low awareness of new titles among consumers means that the first release is unlikely to be a hit," he said. "But we plan to steadily develop these titles into new sources of earnings." Plus, the company will be extending the life cycles of new and franchise titles with DLC--though probably with a few lessons learned.

On that note, Street Fighter X Tekken sold 1.4 million units across three territories in fiscal 2011 -- as compared to Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, which sold 1.7 million units across two territories (Europe, North America), and Monster Hunter Tri-G, which sold 1.6 million in Japan alone.

Capcom says SFxT sales have "fallen short of our plan" and attributes it to "cannibalism" due to other games in the genre launching in such a short time. It sees Raccoon City as a success, though, making the company confident in its decision to use western developers for its properties.

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  • reply
    May 24, 2012 3:30 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Capcom aims to shorten development cycle.

    Capcom's earnings for fiscal 2011 have come in, and the company has shared details on its plans for development cycles, DLC, and how recent sales may influence its western plans.

    • reply
      May 24, 2012 3:45 PM

      Well, everyone knows that rushing work leads to quality!

      • reply
        May 24, 2012 3:58 PM

        yeah this is basically the death knell right here

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      May 24, 2012 4:04 PM

      Something's got to be wrong somewhere if a game sells over 1 million and the developer/publisher is not happy...

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      May 24, 2012 4:04 PM

      I love Capcom and all but holy crap this year is going to be terrible for them and it's the 25th anniversary of Mega Man without a fucking Mega Man game to show for it.

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        May 24, 2012 5:30 PM

        Well, for the 25th of Ghosts'N Goblins they released Gold Knights II... :(

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      May 24, 2012 7:30 PM

      SFxT fell short and Racoon City a success? WTF?

      RE: RC is probably the worst game I've played all year.

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        May 24, 2012 8:56 PM

        Well, it might have been a shit game, but it sold well so its a success in that sense.

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        May 25, 2012 12:15 AM

        I think a game's success is gauged by it's expectations. They probably expected SFxT to sell a lot more... and apparently didn't expect much from Racoon City.

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      May 25, 2012 6:48 AM

      YAY!
      MORE stupid, dumb money whoring Street Fighting games to turn out. Whats next? the 26th Anniversary Edition?
      Fuck Crapcom.

    • reply
      May 25, 2012 8:15 AM

      this report completely disregards the "how" that is explained in other articles. they plan on hiring upwards of 1000 more people to scale with the increased dev cycle. More jobs and less wait, plus more understanding of IP awareness are all good things.

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