Capcom producer Masachika Kawata has made a claim that will likely upsetResident Evilfans who crave a return to the series’ past glories. He’s claimed that survival horror is too small a market for the very franchise that popularized it, and believesResident Evil 6needs to be more of an action game to perform satisfactorily at retail.
“[Resident Evil‘s primary games] need to be an extension of the changes made inResident Evil 4andResident Evil 5,” he explained to Gamasutra. “I think that especially for the North American market, we need to keep going in that direction, and take that a step further. And that’s exactly one of the reasons thatRevelationsis the way it is.
“Looking at the marketing data [for survival horror games] … the market is small, compared to the number of unitsCall of Dutyand all those action games sell. A ‘survival horror’Resident Evildoesn’t seem like it’d be able to sell those kind of numbers.”
He conceded thatResident Evildoesn’t need to be a straight action game, and the goal is to have games that retain the series’ identity, but can expand “into other markets” as well as horror. So yeah, that’s why you can’t have any survival horror from Capcom anymore. Shame really, but hardly surprising. At least there are PC developersstill brave enoughto scare the crap out of us.
Survival horror’ market too small forResident Evil, says Capcom producer[Gamasutra]
