Capcom hopes to shorten development cycles

[Blacksite]

During a financial briefing, Capcom CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto told investors the publisher hopes to cut development times from three or four years to around two and a half years.

As reported by GameInformer, Tsujimoto had to justify the increased manpower – and therefore, expense – Capcom will have to throw at major projects to meet this new schedule.

“Speeding up development will probably raise the cost. But creating quality content will be vital to Capcom’s ability to survive by overcoming intense global competition. We will make substantial investments to develop this content,” he said.

This more rapid release schedule will allow Capcom to space major franchise entires out more evenly, filling the gaps with DLC.

“For example, we may have five titles for which we can launch sequels over the next two and a half years. In this case, we can even out the introduction dates in order to launch major titles on a regular basis,” he said.

COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto noted the publisher is already picking up pace, with the gap between Lost Planet 2 and 3 just two and a half years, as opposed to Resident Evil 5 and 6′s three and a half.

“In both cases, the release cycle is shorter than for the previous series title. For Resident Evil 6, we improved efficiency by using a new alignment of internal developers. For Lost Planet 3, we are using an alliance with an overseas development company with the goal of launching this title 2.5 years after the previous title in this series,” he said.

“So we have succeeded in greatly reducing the development time compared with prior titles. Overall, we believe that we are making steady progress in shortening development times by efficiently utilizing our own workforce and making effective use of external development companies.”

There is one exception to this rule:

“For DmC Devil May Cry, development will require five years due to the time needed to select development companies because of our decision to switch to external development,” Tsujimoto said.

Ninja Theory’s take on the Devil May Cry series hits PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in January, with a PC version to follow.

Source

Sounds more like quantity over quality to me. :/

[akhi216]

Exactly. The quicker the crap they shit the more the money they get over time. The guy who is responsible for coming up with such a genius idea should get a raise. *end /sarcasm.

Seriously though all they're saying is that their plans to milk customers with DLC hasn't gone as they hoped, so the plan to have quicker releases for obvious reasons. Quantity over quality indeed.

They inadvertently shot themselves in the foot by releasing Marvel vs Capcom 3 with only 13 characters and later burning unsuspecting buyer with the 48 character Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (50 with DLC). Now gamers are shy about picking up their fighting titles...good job! Disk locked content helped too.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

[imtherealkratos]

i hope they succeed

[akhi216]

i hope they succeed

Hell no! Shorter game development cycles equals not well thought out, poorly implemented, recycled junk that's released with the intention of being "saved" by DLC and has unsorted out bugs. We don't need any more of that in the game industry. I'm a big Street Fighter fan and dabble with Marvel vs Capcom occassionally; I'd hate to see rushed sequels with buggy online play.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

[Kuro]

Quantity over quality yup sure as hell sounds like it,thing is people dig into there shit allowing them to feel like they can do whatever the hell they want screw that I'd take a game that was put forth alot of time and effort too then some incomplete game whatever the hell capcom doing I hope at least they would think things through. Doubt it though I've only cared for a couple ip's from them such as Resident Evil and Devil May Cry.

[RaY_210]

Lol. First, they put "dlc" on their discs, and now they wanna shorten development? Their games don't seem to be doing to well as is, and now they wanna give them less time? I understand they want to have more people working on them, but I don't know if this will have a good result.

[Kauldron]

Capcom hopes to lower game quality.

Wow. One of my favorite companies from last gen. I don't know who's fallen the furthest, Capcom or Square.

[Blacksite]

Capcom hopes to lower game quality.

Wow. One of my favorite companies from last gen. I don't know who's fallen the furthest, Capcom or Square.

At least we can look forward to Final Fantasy Versus XIII from Square Enix.

[Abdou23]

I hope manufacturers come up wit ha technical way to make development cycle much faster,like back at the PS1 era and before.Some games take like 6-7 years to be developed which is ridiculous really.

[Tibiquera]

If long development cycle means high quality product then Duke Nukem Forever should've been the best game this generation. He's only saying Capcom needs to re-organize itself to release games in a shorter amount of time. Here's two quotes to think about:

Speeding up development will probably raise the cost.

Overall, we believe that we are making steady progress in shortening development times by efficiently utilizing our own workforce and making effective use of external development companies.

In other words, more people working per project, greater efficiency, and use of external people. Nothing to suggest quality will be lowered.

[DreDayDetox]

Makes sense. A shittier, shorter game invites room for MORE DLC down the line. I guess some things never change.

[Fon]

So in the next six months we can expect, Super Dragon's Dogma: Hydra edition and Super Dragon's Dogma: Hydra edition to the extreme six months after the former.

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Oh capcom, you can suck mah dick you clueless, money grabbin idiots. I don't think you will ever see another euro from me.

[XSpike]

So long as its, increased manpower = shorter dev time = more expensive to make games due to more people working on the game but = more games getting released = more money overall

[D3seeker]

I almost wanna see them burn, or the idiots in charge at least. Hopefully someone takes over sooner rather than later with a level head that isn't totally out to milk us for our cash on what turns out to be crap.

[TDbank24]

TD wants some good games from Capcom like back in the day. Do they even realize they were in large part the reason why the PS1 was as good as it was?

Seems like yesterday i was playing that Resident Evil 1 for the first time. Yet it seems so far away.

[DreDayDetox]

Every time Seth Killian says something, a baby is killed.

[GalapagosaraY]

now the 1 month earlier release of Resident Evil 6 makes sense, some executive prob felt the game was too long which i remember was mentioned as around 30 hours in some previews and decided to split the game up in a bunch of DLC' s

Oh and has anyone seen the 3 DLC's thats in the PSN store for Dragons Dogma, all of them seem like rather useless stuff that just seem to save you time from grinding stuff in the game. Definitely not gonna pick Dogma up anymore till its got a complete edition out there with a platinum price tag. The same goes with Asuras Wrath seems like they keep releasing on disc DLC episodes for that game everyday lately. Capcoms love for DLC pretty much makes all of their games obsolete to buy on release day this generation, so dissapointed in how a company that pretty much ruled the Nes/Snes and PSX era has become this DLC abusing company

[Silver_Knight]

For every like I get on my comment Capcom will make one less shitter game.

[Bio]

So this could mean they're still gonna milk games and foster ridiculous DLC schemes to us...but FASTER.

Yay?

In all seriousness, though, I'm happy to know there could be more quality games, but I can't help but take this info with caution to a degree lol.

[Equinoqs]

Resident Evil is pretty much my last link to Capcom (might try DMC to see how NT did, though), and they seem like they're severing even that with RE5x3 (aka RE6). It's sad to see an old favorite wither and rot.

Every time Seth Killian says something, a baby is killed.

Is that a promise? 'Cause, like, overpopulation, ya know.

[Soldier 95B]

I don't care what the development cycle is so long as I get games that are fun, have lots of content and excellent quality.

[Ghost-Rhayne]

I don't care what the development cycle is so long as I get games that are fun, have lots of content and excellent quality.

Oh their games have lots of content alright, you just have to pay extra for it.

[Soldier 95B]

Oh their games have lots of content alright, you just have to pay extra for it.

True dat. Capcom are DLC whores!

[RaY_210]

If long development cycle means high quality product then Duke Nukem Forever should've been the best game this generation. He's only saying Capcom needs to re-organize itself to release games in a shorter amount of time. Here's two quotes to think about:





In other words, more people working per project, greater efficiency, and use of external people. Nothing to suggest quality will be lowered.

So long as its, increased manpower = shorter dev time = more expensive to make games due to more people working on the game but = more games getting released = more money overall

Or more games and more expensive games means more dlc to try to make up that added cost