Capcom doesn’t trust Western developers with new IPs
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The unequivocal failure of Bionic Commando has clearly knocked Capcom’s confidence in Western developers. The title which was outsourced to the now defunct Swedish developers Grinn only managed to shift 27,000 units in its first month in the U.S.
This has forced Capcom to rethink their strategy with only Japanese studios likely to be trusted with new IPs in the future.
According to Capcom, Bionic Commando “demonstrated the difficulty of outsourcing the development of new [titles] to overseas companies.” This does not mean Capcom are abandoning Western developers altogether; they cite it a necessity to outsource some titles should they want to continue working on as many titles as they do.
“We cannot develop a sufficient number of titles without using the resources of these companies. This is why we plan to continue using these alliances.”
In the future, Western developers are expected to deal only “with well-established characters and universal themes.”
Newsflash, Capcom: Bionic Commando sucks anyway – it’s nothing to do with where it was developed.
“In the future, Western developers are expected to deal only “with well-established characters and universal themes.””
That statement doesn’t make much sense to me. It almost suggests that Capcom’s problem with GRIN’s handling of Bionic Commando (as an example) was with the direction they chose to go in with the story and core game-play mechanics; the two areas which I personally thought were strongest.
If anything the game was let down most by poor implementation and a lack of polish which, presumably, would have occurred regardless of whether or not it was a new or an established IP.