Interview: Capcom’s Keiji Inafune
Tags: Capcom Games, Case In Point, Compatriots, Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2, Eurogamer, Game Ideas, Game Industry, Global Research, Japanese Game, Keiji Inafune, Land Of The Rising Sun, Playstation 3, Powerhouse, Street Fighter X, Time Warp, Tongue In Cheek, Top Of The World, Xbox 360, Zombie
“The Japanese are stuck in a time warp.”
All Capcom games exist because Keiji Inafune said yes. As head of global research and development at the Japanese powerhouse, Inafune’s the man responsible for approving game ideas from his own producers. A case in point: the recently announced Street Fighter X Tekken is in production because producer Yoshinori Ono convinced Inafune that it would be worthwhile.
Now that Inafune’s just about finished his job as producer of Dead Rising 2, the tongue-in-cheek zombie chew-’em-up due out on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 later this month, you’d think he’d be on top of the world. He is not.
The state of the Japanese game industry is getting him down. Things are not going well in the Land of the Rising Sun, and Inafune refuses, unlike others in his homeland, to ignore the situation. Here, in an interview with Eurogamer, he goes deep into Japan’s problems, and reveals his hope that Dead Rising 2 will wake up a few of his compatriots.