MORE LIKE CRAPCOM AMIRITE

I have a love/hate thing going on with Capcom. Capcom is much like Nintendo That Was. When they give a shit about what they do, they turn out solid gold. They churn out diamond encrusted platinum games. Games that define and/or create genres and go down in history.

Problem is, Capcom only does this sometimes. They go in bursts. They'll create something huge, like Megaman, or Street Fighter, or Beat-'Em-Ups, or Resident Evil, or Devil May Cry, They'll milk it for years until the public's aboslutely sick of it, and then they'll drop it like it's made of superheated plutonium covered in butter. Here's the sad part: The stuff they put out in their "milking" phase isn't that bad. It's just not nearly as good as what could be. See: numerous fighting game iterations using the exact same sprite sets, fourteen billion Megaman Battle Network games, Onimusha and Dino Crisis trying and failing to be a hit, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, etc.

The other thing that's clearly evident to me now is that Capcom has literally no idea what they're doing. The only way any money is ever made by that company is when some high up exec begrudgingly lets one of their people make their idea into a game. Their only strategy is to throw money after projects that have either made money in the past (Resident Evil) or throw money at projects that look like projects that have made other people money (Lost Planet). Beyond that, they greenlight only what they're begged to greenlight on hands and knees, and even a greenlight doesn't mean that the project is going to be advertised once it's completed.

I'm not going to list Capcom's numerous crimes right now, mostly because half of them are perpetrated by Keiji Inafune, who's not really the target of my wrath here. However, it's clear that the people in charge of Capcom have so little idea what they're doing, there's no reason they shouldn't be fired at this point. Need proof? Look no further than SFIV. 2 years ago, Capcom flatly stated that Street Fighter was a dead franchise, no one cared about it anymore, and they were absolutely convinced the most profitable route was to move on to other things. Capcom of America BEGGED Capcom to make another Street Fighter, saying that "hey, it still has a pretty big fan following, you know". Cut to today, SFIV has made millions. I'll be surprised if RE5 makes as much money for them. Same deal with Bionic Commando. Factions within Capcom said it was like pulling teeth to get the project greenlit, and it went on to become one of the highest selling XBLA games of all time.

Now, i'm aware that part of the reason that SFIV sold so much is that there hadn't been a proper Street Fighter game in over a decade. Had there been a yearly SF game, something like SFIV would have sold like balls. I highly doubt that was part of their master plan, however.

On the flipside, you have Capcom's mind-boggling dogged support of the Lost Planet franchise. Before the game was even released, they shopped out the movie rights, planned a collector's edition, ports to other systems, the works, all before seeing public reaction. The game sold well so I hear, but got piss poor reviews for a Capcom game. Trying to make a movie out of the story of that fucking thing is going to be like trying to write a book about some kid's MSpaint drawings. Good luck with that, guys. They just announced Lost Planet 2 to an overwhelming "Uh, so?". And still they press on with the attitude of "WE'LL MAKE YOU LIKE IT DAMMIT".

The depressing thing is that they probably don't care if it's a hit or not. As long as it's not a loss money-wise, they don't care. They don't even do the greedy corporation thing of trying to maximize profit, if it makes any profit at all, they're good. Meanwhile, they're sitting on about ten franchises right now they could dust off, inject with a little marketing and effortlessly make billions with instead of this Halo rip-off garbage. Morrigan and Felicia are still instantly recognizable video game icons, despite being from a fighting game that only had three installments in the US, none of which sold incredibly well and the last of which was fifteen years ago. Is Capcom currently planning a game about the big-chested succubus sex queen? Fuck no guys, it's time to shoot angry fireflies in the snow, here we go. Are you fucking kidding me? The thing that really overloads my plasma cannon about all this is that it's not fucking hard to see what would be a hit. You toss a PM to any random fucktard in a gaming forum and they'll give you a five year plan for projects that would enable Capcom to climb to the goddamned moon on a pile of money.

You know what? Keiji Inafune, much as I hate his fucking guts, has wanted to make Megaman Legends 3 for what, ten years now? The answer from Capcom HQ has always been the same: "We can't see that making a profit". Well, guess what faggots, you didn't see Street Fighter making a profit either, and it just paid for your gold plated hookers to tell you your tiny Japanese dicks aren't really that tiny for another month, so maybe you should shut the fuck up, listen to your goddamned talent, throw your advertising department behind him and let him make his fucking game.

Of course, knowing good ol' Inafune, he'd make a Megaman Legends where the entire game has a time limit, and if you fire your Mega Buster more than five times without saving your console explodes, but at least give the man enough rope to hang himself with.