Keije Inafune, who broke away from the legacy of Mega Man with Dead Rising and Lost Planet, says a next-gen Mega Man would be a financial gamble. He estimates a next-gen title starring the blue bomber would cost approximately $15 million. This is the part where it gets weird. Inafune says that from a producer standpoint he's worried about recouping the cost of development and more than once says he's waiting for someone rich to come along and fund it -- and it doesn't have to be Capcom.
"I'm not even saying it has to be Capcom money. It could be EA, actually. I should say a company we have ties with, so maybe Rockstar," Inafune said in an interview with 1UP (video after the break). He believes, from a producer standpoint, the financial risks are too great to make a new Mega Man and says, "Realistically, I would have to say, I would be worried if it would recoup the money we spend."
After that the interview turns into questions about Mega Man Legends 3 and having Inafune draw for the reporters. It is interesting to see the man behind the blue bomber say that a next-gen Mega Man would be a financial gamble. Has the series lost any type of solid financial backing? Is Capcom taking a breather from spending money and upgrading the series to next-gen by focusing on other IPs? Could Inafune just be sick of doing Mega Man? What we do know is that Inafune has plenty on his plate right now with sequels to Dead Rising and the rumored Lost Planet follow up.
Sure, Capcom can't fix the tiny-text or give us that delicious co-op rumor, but they sure can give us more outfits for Frank West in Dead Rising. Major Nelson tells us that Capcom released some free goodies and some micro-pain-ment things.
The free stuff is a Pure White Suit, Stripe Suit and Accountant Suit. The stuff they'll charge you for is "to celebrate Dead Rising and Lost Planet reaching a million" units sold. There are four theme packs being sold for 150 MS points ($1.87) each. Yup, that's a way to show gratitude, celebrate people purchasing your game by charging them more. We're just going to ignore that slap in the face by saying we'll be happy when we get some information on Dead Rising 2.
GameCareerGuide.com gives Dead Rising a New YorkerMagazine-style treatment and goes all highbrow in reminiscing about the title. Dead Rising occupies a very strange place in gaming. It was obviously a hit and talks of a sequel were already in the works a week after the game premiered. But, putting aside the tiny-text and the punishing save system, those horrors were eclipsed by Otis and that walkie-talkie.
There's plenty of "drinks at the Palm" moments in the piece. Like you'll have to read all three pages to understand what this quote actually means, "Dead Rising has, as you might put it, a profoundly 'old-school' sensibility -- a pre-Miyamoto one, even. Its goal is to recapture what once made video games entertaining, by getting rid of many of the institutionalized assumptions that have made them boring, or frustrating, or arbitrary."
Highbrow analysis aside, Dead Rising certainly was a game where the concept was in the right place, along with the writing, the heart, the brains -- mmmm, brains. It was the structure of the game that hurt, especially the menacing way you failed for missing one of those picky, picky case files. The GCG piece actually explains that one should think of Dead Rising as a classic game where you should expect to play it through on one life. Fail? Well, then you should start over. Yeah, the piece gets weird, but that's because you have "institutionalized assumptions" about what to expect from a game. Read the piece and then come back to let us know what you think -- we know you will.
At least "as far as current plans go." So says Capcom's senior director of strategic planning and research, Christian Svensson, posting on the official Capcom forums in the midst of a Devil May Cry outcry. When asked by fans whether the company's new mulitplatform strategy would extend to their pair of successful Xbox 360 titles, Svensson explains that "Dead Rising and Lost Planet are not slated to appear on Wii or PS3," noting that the reasons for the continued exclusivity "are quite convoluted" and are bound by a slew of suspicious non-disclosure agreements.
He goes on to say that Capcom's current approach -- which sees Resident Evil 5 and Devil May Cry 4 coming to both PS3 and Xbox 360 -- is for future titles and isn't meant to be applied in a "retroactive" manner. Of course, this comes just days after Svensson used the forum to respond to sulking petitioners and their disdain for Devil May Cry gracing multiple platforms.
"We are certainly moved that people are so passionate about our products that they would go to such extremes," he said in a seperate thread. "At the same time we feel that allowing more people access to our content pleases far more people than it displeases (after all, we're not denying DMC4 to anyone that was already going to get it). It really is the best decision for the company and for consumers."
Apparently, Dead Rising and Lost Planet simply missed the multiplatform boat.
Capcom was passed over for awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences again this year. Granted, they didn't have any stellar outings in 2006 like they did with 2005's Resident Evil 4, but that didn't stop Gamespot from poking Capcom and pouring lemon juice on their paper-cut.
As Gamespot puts it, "This year, when the nominations for the 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards were announced, two titles that gamers noticed were missing were a critically-lauded pair from Capcom -- Okami and Dead Rising." You know, Okami, the Zelda-like game about a wolf that Capcom supported so much they shut down the studio that created it. And the "criticially-lauded" Dead Rising? Gamers may have been critical of Dead Rising, but the lauded portion is a stretch. For every good thing (and the good was amazing!), Dead Rising compensated by giving us two bad.
Anyway, when all is said and done, Capcom is not a member of the AIAS and needs to pay its dues to be nominated. AIAS confirmed to Gamespot that publishers Tecmo, Majesco and Eidos are also not members, accordingly they did not get nominations. This issue should be pretty cut and dry for Capcom, just pay the AIAS if you want a chance at a trophy to place on the mantel for polishing between Mega Man releases.
Once again landing in the gap between video games and reality, the Mega 64 boys find themselves covering a zombie outbreak in a mall. Follow the real Frank West as he takes "FANTASTIC!" photos, protects those with poor pathfinding abilities and deals with annoying security guards. He's covered wars, you know.
[Thanks Jay & Braith. More Mega 64 hilarity can be found here.]
As the prettiest girl at the gossip ball, Capcom has been making quite a few headlines recently for actions they may or may not be considering. In light of the particularly bogus rumors floating concerning Microsoft buying out Capcom, lets take a look at some of the more substantiated rumors involving your favorite Mega Man sweatshop.
For your consideration, three rumors from the February issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly (#112). For those who still believe in the aforementioned rumor, you may as well tear down those tin foil barriers around your room as Capcom "looks to be making several interesting games for the PS3's (network) service." The two titles mentioned being a remake of Street Fighter II with brand new sprites and an "updated NES classic."
Having shipped over one million copies of their Romero-inspired zombie massacre sim, Capcom can confidently dub Dead Rising a full-on franchise. Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, Capcom's head of consumer games confirms that further zombie-mashing titles are due to arrive on consoles in the future (feel free to let out a collective gasp).
"When you're at the front-end of a hardware cycle, people are willing to take more of an experiment in what games they'll try," says Mark Beaumont. "Bringing out Dead Rising has allowed us to establish a new franchise that we can use for years to come." It's always refreshing to see brand new franchises take off, especially when chainsaws are involved.
Controversial save mechanics and shameful SDTV support aside, we fully expect the next Dead Rising to be considerably more pleasant than being torn apart by a snarling, undead force.
The German ratings board has refused to issue a rating for Crackdown, marking the third instance in which an Xbox 360 title will be ostensibly blacklisted in the country.
This peculiar circumstance does not make Crackdown illegal, but its sale to minors is. In addition, the game cannot be displayed or advertised by retailers, and all purchases of Crackdown must be made in person. The ratings board was likely turned off by the game's violence, which has yet to draw attention from other critics.
Lumines Live! (XBLA) On a big screen with surround sound, Q Entertainment's Lumines Live was easily the most-played game in my library (if you stretch the definition of library to digitally distributed titles). Although I railedagainst how microtransactions were implemented in this title and still think the extent to which they disclosed the dearth of features was misleading, both the Basic and Advanced Pack got more than enough play time, as did the multiplayer. It is the best Xbox Live Arcade title since Geometry Wars.
Bully (PS2) Bully is my current favorite and has renewed my faith in Rockstar as a forward-moving publisher. The familiar game mechanics don't feel stale in this decidedly more innocent universe. Bully relies more on mischief than shock value, a relief, as are the smaller scale and lower difficulty level (really, the missions are simply less frustrating than some of the tedious tasks that abound in the GTA series). Bully isn't deserving of 'Game of the Year' honors, but Rockstar Vancouver's effort is one of the most refreshing and outright fun titles of 2006. [See also: "Dissecting Rockstar's formula"]
The latest installment of the Onechanbara series will debut on Xbox 360 next week in Japan. Is it significant that this cult franchise has jumped from PlayStation 2 to Xbox 360? Has Microsoft finally scored a key victory in Japan? Definitely not. In fact, Microsoft likely prefers to distance itself from this unexceptional achievement.
As Onechanbara Vortex opens we find our heroine washing off the day's grime, her schoolgirl sister eyeing the news just as zombies emerge. Newly rinsed, our heroine elects to don a cowboy hat, bikini, and blade, and, joined by sis, embarks on a bloody quest to save the world. The one-button hack n' slasher is rounded out by a dress-up mode.
While seemingly an amalgamation of two high-profile titles -- Dead Rising and Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 -- Vortex's budget production likely means the game will never see release outside of Japan.
Looks like Capcom finally figured out what Nintendo knew when they developed the Wii: A clear majority of consumers still own standard definition televisions. Following complaints that the multiplayer text on Lost Planet was like going through a Dead Rising tiny text time warp, Capcom has taken "the great feedback we have received from our fans ... Lost Planet will automatically detect if you are playing on an SDTV and change the score display settings for this mode automatically."
Capcom states that the demo does not reflect the final build "as they are still early works in progress." You know, Lost Planet was still in the "early works" with a launch date of January 12, 2007. Other fixes to the final game will be having objectives delivered in single player as both voice-over and text. Players can also pause the game at any time to review objectives on their in-game PDA.
Hold up, back to paragraph one, that text fix will happen "automatically" on a SDTV? Now is there any way we can get Capcom to reconsider their decision to not patchDead Rising's tiny text, considering they have the technology to fix it "automatically" now?
For those who have played Dead Rising on a standard definition television, you aren't completely blind yet -- the headline on top is factual. Dead Rising is on sale this week at Best Buy for $39.99, which is cheaper than buying it used from most retailers. Why the strong price drop? No idea, but we certainly made a call to Best Buy corporate to find out. Sadly, it's Sunday, so we aren't expecting an answer today.
The reviews for Dead Rising were kind given its awkward save system and structural issues. Also, insult was added to injury when Capcom squashed any hopes of patching the standard definition tiny-text problem. So, take those $20 you're gonna save and put it toward an HDTV fund -- or a pair of designer glasses.
We chose Gabriel's truly terrifying milieu of a zombie infestation, sans zombies, as the winner in the final day of our Dead Rising contest. Everyone knows Phantoms don't exist -- yet, there it is! Gives us the creeps. Of course, don't forget about our other winners: zombie Flanders, vegetarian zombies, and PS3 early adopter zombies, each one terrifying in their own right. Vegetarians!
We'd like to thank every single entrant to our little contest (more honorable mentions after the break), and Capcom for hooking us up with some great prizes.
Keije Inafune, who broke away from the legacy of Mega Man with Dead Rising and Lost Planet, says a next-gen Mega Man would be a financial gamble. He estimates a next-gen title starring the blue bomber would cost approximately $15 million. This is the part where it gets weird. Inafune says that from a producer standpoint he's worried about recouping the cost of development and more than once says he's waiting for someone rich to come along and fund it -- and it doesn't have to be Capcom.
