Capcom hasn't called time on the Onimusha and Dino Crisis franchises, says VP of strategic planning and business development, Christian Svensson.
In an interview with IGN the Capcom exec reflected on the cultural appeal of Onimusha, which has traditionally been a very Japanese oriented franchise.
He also admitted that despite the popularity of the first game, the brand hasn't been very resilient.
"Onimusha is tricky in particular given how Japanese-focused the franchise has been," said Svensson.
"When you look at the timing and sales trend of how Onimusha has gone each outing - I won't give you the exact numbers, but let's just say every outing subsequently has been about 60% of the prior - the brand doesn't right now have quite the resilience that you might think."
"While Onimusha 1 and Onimusha 2 are among our more successful titles, Onimusha 3 and Onimusha Dawn of Dreams, not so much," he said.
He went on to tease that while there hasn't been a new entry in either franchise for quite some time, Capcom hasn't forgotten about them.
"For the time being I think it's in percolate mode, that is to say, it's not forgotten internally, there are discussions that go on, but I don't think anyone has sort has come up with the 'that's it' idea of how to get the game back up to 3 or 4 million units."
"You may see some things of the brand pop up in the future, I can't say what, but there are certainly discussions about it."
Switching to Dino Crisis, Svensson wasn't shy about pointing out exactly where the series stumbled, citing the Xbox release as a key moment.
"Dino Crisis 3 I think is where it went off the rails if I recall. Dino Crisis' success really was an out cropping of Resident Evil 1 and 2," he admitted.
Though the franchise hasn't been forgotten, he revealed that the halls of Capcom weren't exactly buzzing with ideas for a new Dino Crisis, in fact - it doesn't even have someone to champion its cause.
"There are discussions, Dino Crisis comes up from time to time, but there isn't any burning desire from R&D or the business side to light that franchise back up again."
"Until there's an internal champion with something incredible, things just sort of sit there".
Capcom has said it considers Resident Evil to be a series targeted at "a mass audience" - separate from franchises aimed at "a small number of hardcore gamers".
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=270376Yeah, would this be the Capcom that's had continual low sales and muted reactions to nearly everything bar Streetfighter and Resi? These two will be dusted off soon enough...
