Do you love your PSP or DS? Ready for the 3DS or PSP2? Well the president of Capcom’s mobile division, Midori Yuasa, thinks that day is done. She believes that those who bought handhelds in droves are now satisfied by gaming on smartphones, and Capcom’s spending the money to prove it.
“The casual gamer that used to play on the PC and the hardcore gamer that used to play on a dedicated gaming portable now plays on their smartphone,” said Yuasa to MCV. “The iPhone and larger smartphone markets are extremely important to Capcom as, like no device before, smartphones have the potential to become a universal game platform. We have a lot of stuff on the horizon for both hardcore and casual gamers, so 2011 is shaping up to be huge on Capcom’s mobile front.”
Capcom Interactive tested the waters last November with the release of Smurfs’ Village for iPhone. The title was free, but charged for additional in-game items. The result: the title actually outgrossed Rovio’s Angry Birds for a couple of weeks.
“A freemium business model can be extremely effective as illustrated by the success of Smurfs’ Village. However, the key is that the game has to be designed from day one as a freemium title,” she explained. “If you try and shoehorn in an alternate revenue model into an existing design, you end up with a muddled experience that users either ignore or hammer with user reviews.”
Is the day of the portable dedicated console dead? And why is Capcom sending out mixed messages? Clearly they're also excited for 3DS with top games like Resident Evil: Mercenaries andSuper Street Fighter IV (which looked and played great).
