Capcom took a tough hit over the last fiscal year, with net income seeing a 73% drop due to the lack of new releases in key franchises like Resident Evil and Street Fighter. The Japanese developer and publisher hopes to fix the problem by increasing the number of marquee titles they produce each year, from two to three or four. According to a report by Nikkei, Capcom is looking to outsource more development work to U.S. and European studios, while designing the titles on their home soil.
With the outsourcing, Capcom believes that they can shorten their development cycle from four years to two years. However, the company will not be looking to allow Western developers the autonomy that resulted in Dark Void and Bionic Commando, which were both released to poor sales. Gamers can look forward to more Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Resident Evil projects in the future, like the recently announced Street Fighter x Tekken and Mega Man Universe games.
Let's just hope they don't go overboard and milk their top franchises to death. Franchise fatigue is never a pretty thing to watch.
[Via Andriasang]
