If, according to a (too) famous maxim, “Nintendo will die”, the other manufacturers in the industry seem curiously spared these premature obituaries. Fortunately, the king of survival horror recently wanted to balance the scales (a little). It came close to that.
See also: Resident Evil Village: The Game’s Story and Ending Leaked Online
start of the weekThe venerable Shinji Mikami shared his wishes and dreams for the end of his career as he slowly but steadily approached his sixties.
After three decades in the video game industry, you thought the Master would benefit from a clear, far-sighted eye, like a new-age islander Paco Rabanne. We also. And we were all wrong.
Biological opportunity
If we owe many strokes of genius to the founder of the Tango Gameworks studio, from the (re) establishment of a genre with Resident Evil to its implementation with Resident Evil 4, The prospect was sometimes completely wrong in his predictions, as he recently admitted in the magazine diversity.
It was during the development of this crucial episode for the series that Mikami became a little confused: integrated into the famous “Capcom Five” project (which contained five titles that were exclusively intended for the GameCube), Resident Evil 4 was not to see the light of day on other platforms, a decision that is all the more astonishing given that the Japanese maker was already in disrepair when the deal was signed in the early 2000s.
Why did you make this strategic decision that did not stand up to the facts? Mikami sheds new light on the subject and the thinking is pretty … unexpected:
At the time, there was the idea that Sony’s efforts weren’t necessarily going to be rewarded and that, ultimately, they could choose to get back to doing what they did best. And that was the case with Microsoft too. I thought Nintendo could be the only manufacturer making games in the future. And I totally crashed!
In fact, the director was so sure of his punch that he went so far as to balance his position with his superior:
I remember Capcom President Kenzo Tsujimoto calling me to ask if I really intend not to get Resident Evil 4 out in other media. And I told him if he wanted to, he could, but I’d have to get fired first.
Fortunately for us and the industry, Mikami has kept her job, Resident Evil 4 has finally released on almost every medium imaginable, pouring over 10 million units in the last count. Sometimes it takes a little …
