Capcom Legend Keiji Inafune Resigns

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Richard Walker

Mega Man creator and all-round Capcom legend, Keiji Inafune has announced via his personal blog in a post entitled 'Sayonara' that he's quit as Capcom's Head of R&D Management Group, Consumer Games R&D Division and Contents Management Division after 23 years with the company.

"A manager's work means evaluating your subordinates and speaking your dreams. Anyone who can do both of those can be a manager. I thought that when I came here, and I still think that now," writes Inafune who started out at Capcom as a character designer, before reaching the lofty position at the very top of the company's development hierarchy. "There's nowhere higher for me to go," he explained.

"I'm leaving Capcom with the intention of starting my life over," adds Inafune, who is already looking for his next challenge. "People that really know me, can see where I'm coming from. I'm not a regular dude. It's probably because I'm strange."

He then closes with a "thank-you". Inafune not only created Mega Man at Capcom, but had a hand in some of the firm's biggest franchises including Lost Planet, Dead Rising and Onimusha. He's also drawn fire for controversial remarks stating that the Japanese games industry is "finished"

We look forward to seeing what Inafune does next.

[Via Kotaku. Thanks, Bryce]

Comments
45
  • Capcom used to be legends, now they only seem to release sub-par games that we have all seen done before but better... They fell, but made space for other developers to take their mantle This bloke has some good sense to resign, Capcom are a thing of the past
  • Yes, he's strange. And yes, once reaching the top there's no further, too bad
  • NOOO!!!!
  • :( He shall be missed. Who will be in charge of Dead Rising 3? Onimusha 5???
  • That sucks. I wonder what will happen to the Dead Rising series now that he's gone. :(
  • I agree with #1, Capcom used to be top bollocks and now they have just ruined some great franchises like Street Fighter and Resident evil which turned into below-average games. They would get more money by making HD versions of their older games - I know a RE collection (1-4) would go down a treat!! Really wanted to like lost planet and vanquish but they both turned out a bit wank, playable, but wank
  • I expect royalties as well as autograph signings (Willing to sign boobs, too). :p ~Bryce
  • I wish Inafune-San all the best! ....Now, Yoshinori Ono, get in that top spot and make that game of your dreams, Darkstalkers!!!! Arigato!
  • yo its cool he is deciding to move on eventually you gotta be like " its about that time." CAPCOM will always be the mecca of gaming. People who dont even play games know about CAPCOM. to those who believe that they "use to be legends" can fall back. because at the end of the day they set that bar as a company
  • @3, nuff said
  • This might be for the best. I know the guy has done some great things for the industry, but his more recent views on wanting to target most of their franchises to the western market has resulted in some very questionable creative decisions in my opinion. Japanese developers need to have more pride in what seperates them from the rest, especially when it comes to a company with as many A+ titles that Capcom has under its belt.
  • @5. The Dead Rising series is still probably in good hands. Seen as though DR2 was created by Blue Castle Games, i'd imagine that they will have the series from now on.
  • Anyone who knows Capcom history could see that the company is largely rotting from the inside out. First, they sell-out Resident Evil to become some cheesy-ass action game instead using Outbreak (the best game in the series) as a foundation for modern survivor-horror games. Then Street Fighter has another sequel.. but its full of retarded new characters and broken/useless features. Fan-favorites like Dino Crisis and Onimusha haven't seen an installment for years, while they keep milking crap like Megaman (although I'm not lumping in the 9 and 10, which are throwbacks to the actual good MM games of the NES/SNES era)and creating garbage like Lost Planet. Let's not forget the lame Bionic Commando 3d remake, or the fact that they're barely ported their old classic arcade games, despite years of fan pleading.
  • One of the few good things Capcom did recent was create Dead Rising, and for some reason.. rather they working on it as a continous franchise they hire it out to a different company (who did a great job), but that's besides the point.. are you too lazy or inept to make your own games anymore Capcom?
  • This is a shame, but alas someone else will feel his shoes and hopefully the person who does is worthy of it. Good for him choosing to pursue challenges in his life versus remaining comfortable for the purpose of money.
  • And yes, the Japanese stranglehold on gaming has just about done a complete 180, as the creative powerhouses from the 80s and 90s have lost consumer interest from years of cliches, sequel farming, and stagnant Anime culture. Nobody wants to play as a spunky teenager with amnesia who has to gather the help of a pink-haired princess to fight off an evil empire. The legendary status of games like Suikoden, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy have given away to Fallout, Deus Ex, and Bioshock.
  • *Mass Effect, although I guess Bioshock could be seen as a counterpart to something like Secret of Mana or Parasite Eve.
  • Take a chill pill Xeno. By statistics both SFIV and RE5 have sold more than enough to guarantee sequels. Even throwing in little extra and rereleasing SFIV has sold maaaaaanyyyy units (don't feel like looking for #'s - but they're out there;-)) I can't rly see how they are doing worse when I loved RE5 and thought it was a big step from RE4. More cinematic, more engaging and way prettier. Online and offline co-op, so-so multiplayer, story driven DLC. I mean what do you want more?? Sure it's not as scary as the first one, but this became action survival game with RE2.... OT: He probably will move to US seeing as video games in Japan are dying;-) Can't say nothing about SFIV as I am noa big fan of fighters, but I have to say I love the art style and my friends said all the good things about it and still play it today....
  • well this sucks they had a great set of games with the orginal RE and other games, but this was going to happen sooner or later because well people cant live or do things forever. on the other hand it does seem like capcom is starting to lose some of its power, all the games that capcom has made resently are great im not going to lie, but arent as great as the original games were.
  • I didn't see this one coming especially considering that Mega Man Legends 3's development is underway. I wish this man good luck with anything he does in the future. Some of my favorite franchises in gaming were made by this man. BTW, people saying that Capcom is driving their franchises to the ground, WTF are you guys talking about? The only game I'll question that was not what it should have been was RE5, and that game was a really good game.
  • Personally Bionic Commando 3D was very good, alot of people agree too. Just because is got bad reviews by alot (not all) magzines and reviewers, mostly because they couldn't understand how to swing properly ... The main reason that failed in sales was due to releasing a stupid demo of multiplayer, shame. Yes Capcom have taken a slide recently, but there games are still decent. And #6 Capcom didn't make Vanquish ... even so, it is far from 'wank' as you put it.
  • I kinda agree on the whole "Japanese gaming industry being finished", because honestly, I think there's only one major producer left, and that's capcom, and I'm sure capcom knows it. So, at this point, they're trying way too hard to be "at the top" when there's no one else in Japan to compete against.
  • @#6 I totaly agree.. If Capcom would have released the RE Classics updated with HD graphics, then surely the hardcore fans are sold (especially me)
  • Also --- I was really excited for Lost Planet 2. I got it. Less than 6 hours of single player and we were all promised it was going to have AMAZING co-op. Well, it turns out it really doesn't have that good of co-op, and online is just terrible. And not to mention the achievements. My god, what were they thinking? 50 achievements. 42 are secret. It doesn't matter either way though, because most of the secret achievements are "Reach level 99 with this class" "Reach level 99 with that class". Are they trying to make extreme achievements to keep us playing? If anything, it discourages us from playing.
  • Aw. I just met him at Comic-con. Got him to sign my Megaman Powered Up manual. Got a picture with him too. I can't fathom this. Like, he was just recently talking about making a new Dead Rising. So what does this mean? For Dead Rising and Megaman games from now on? D:
  • @18 shut the hell up you dont know what you are talking about,resi 1-3 were all about survival horror and so was zero to an extent and 4 maybe but 5 was an absolute travesty it was like a cod game with cover i mean wtf,if you were a real resi fan you would know that 5 is one of the shittest games ever made
  • This is depressing to hear. I've been a huge fan of everything he has done from MegaMan to Resident Evil. I hope him all the best in whatever he does from here on.
  • @26 Dude Resident Evil 4 and 5 are easily the best of the series. The gameplay is 2783X better than the first 3. 4 is the best of the series by far and it is easily the scariest.
  • :( I already read this but it still makes me sad. If he sticks with games I will check them out. Although I wonder if he's going to try movies? Anyone who watched part 8 of his Dead Rising movie should know what I'm talking about.
  • Wonder what this means for megaman legends 3.......
  • Capcom is still my favorite 3rd party game maker...I rarely see any bad Capcom games.
  • @18 what are u talking about, that's ur personal OPINION, but I've been playing Resident Evil since it 1st appeared on Playstation 1 and at the time it was the best out of the series and one of my all time favorite games of any game..but when part 4 came out that became the best..part 5, even though not really a "survival horror" was still a pretty good game..it was a change from what everyone was use to, but still a very decent game. Part 3 and those stupid spin-offs that appeared on Playstation 1 were garbage..but part 5 is ok
  • LOL @6 Resident Evil was never a great franchise. In fact, RE4 was the only good Resident Evil.
  • All I got to say is Resident Evil 2 & 4 are my favorites both scared the crap out me, and were very fun to play!
  • @33 Resident Evil IS still a great franchise. RE 5 sold more than enough copies to be considered a blockbuster game, RE 1, 2, Code Veronica, and 4 were all greatest hits on the playstation 1 & 2 consoles. You may not have enjoyed them but it is a great franchise!
  • I can't believe people are associating sale figures with quality. I guess Justin Bieber is the artist of the decade then, by that logic. Resident Evil was one of my favorite series of all time, and I know they were a couple of black sheep in the "classic" family (Survivor, Dead Aim, and I'll even lump in 0 with its overuse of giant insect bosses and most of the environments after the train being too similar to RE1/Code Veronica) but when Outbreak came out (which barely anyone bought, and I blame them for RE's new direction) I had hope that Capcom had figured out the perfect formula for survival-horror. Infinite zombies, limited ammo and a reliance on melee weapons like you would have to do in a REAL zombie outbreak, dozens of characters.. none of them doing stupid shit like diving through windows in Matrix-fashion, back-flipping over a million lasers, or punching a fucking boulder.
  • But then RE got rid of the zombies, took out 90% of the scares (or 100% in RE5.. I get more creeped out playing Fallout New Vegas for christsake), and tried to make it an action game. The problem was the story (which had gotten pretty good by RE standards) was a step backwards, annoying escort missions, the movement scheme was still "tank controls" only now without the cool camera angles, you couldn't walk and shoot.. which Outbreak allowed you to to and even Silent Hill.. which came out in 1999, featured and no one would dare not call that the pinnacle of survival-horror. RE5 was even worse, the story was complete garbage, the co-op flip-flopped from being babysitting and over-powered to the point of no challenge, and aside from Mercenaries - most of the non-campaign portions of the were underwhelming to the point I would have ignored them if not the for the achievements.
  • @37 Troll, big fat troll. That's all you are. If you don't like something don't play it, pretty simple. All I was trying to say by the way of sale figures is that obviously people liked the game because it sold well, which makes people like you who dislike or even hated the game in the minority. I don't like or ever have liked any of the GTA series, but they sold well and is considered by many a great franchise, although I do not agree with them, I won't knock it or say it's not a great game or a good frachise or whatever, I just won't play it plain and simple.
  • agree with # 1
  • wow, a bunch of people in here who have no idea what they're fucking talking about, but that's par for the course on this site of course... this guy is one of the biggest legends in video games, PERIOD, and the xbox 360 will be hurting without his influence. the lost planet and dead rising series brought me countless hours of entertainment and i'm sad that capcom no longer employs a visionary on the level of inafune. hopefully he left behind proteges who will continue his work for those of us who appreciate it, and don't need every game to be a retarded clone of call of duty.
  • Lol Jap Porn next.
  • Good riddance, Mega Man is through with being whore'd out any way...time to bring back Captain Commando, King of Dragons, Knights of the Round and all the other under rated Capcom gems of the 80's and early 90's. Also Dead Rising 2 was a complete disaster...if that's where the quality of this guys work went then fuck him, they don't need him or his guidance. We'll find this guy dead in a ditch in a couple weeks, killed by the Yakuza....long live Mega Man though. ;)
  • #36 I totally agree
  • 1. opinions people opinions! 2. sales do not equal good 3. resi 4 was the best resi (outbreak was fun) 4. Dino crisis 1 and 2 are superior to all resi games 5. Dino crisis 1 and 2 are capcom's best games (bar maybe DMC) 6. MAKE A GODDAMN DINO CRISIS 4 FFS OR RE-MAKE 1 AND 2!
  • @38, you're implying they play it, like it and THEN buy it -.-
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