Interviews// Head of Capcom R&D: Keiji Inafune

SPOnG: On that point, what might Microsoft do to keep driving and improving 360 sales in Japan?

Keiji Inafune: Microsoft will continue to push the 360 in Japan. It’s a hard thing to sell to Japanese gamers, but I think they have some things up their sleeve and will continue to try to give Japanese gamers the experiences they want to have on a gaming console.


SPOnG: But why is it such a hard thing to sell to Japanese gamers?

Keiji Inafune: Japanese gamers, or Japanese people in general, are very loyal to brands – whether it be clothing or cars or consumer electronics – so they are still very loyal to Sony and Nintendo. Maybe this brand loyalty isn’t there yet for Microsoft as a videogame console company. Hopefully it will start to improve in future though.


SPOnG: Okay, lets move on to PS3 – which has had a pretty difficult first year so far in the West. How has its first year been in Japan to date?

Keiji Inafune: Sony is a very very big brand in Japan – not only for PlayStation, but for consumer electronics more generally – and I think there are a lot of people who want to buy a PS3 in Japan, but the price is an issue for a lot of people and also the game line-up. So I think there a lot of people waiting for a price reduction and for more games for the system. But it’s true that it hasn’t done well. Or as well as they thought it would – just the same as in Europe and America.


SPOnG: And what of the PS2? Which has a huge installed base in Japan. Is Capcom still supporting PS2?

Keiji Inafune: Yes, we still have a number of titles, people are still looking for new experiences on the PS2. It’s just a matter for us of how long we continue to support PS2… in terms of when we transition ourselves over to predominantly developing games for the next gen consoles. It’s something we are constantly debating.


SPOnG: What are your most favourite and least favourite aspects of developing for PlayStation 3 and for Xbox 360?

Keiji Inafune: So for the Xbox 360, what I really like about the hardware is, in my mind at least, it is basically perfect for developers. It’s based on PC architecture, its extremely easy to develop for, it just works really well. The thing that I don’t like about it – at least in Japan – is that it is not selling well enough to the Japanese consumer, so when making games for Xbox 360 we have to take that into consideration.

For the PS3, the power of the hardware and the CPU and the graphics – there is a lot of potential, but we still haven’t had enough time working with the hardware to really explore and exploit the machine to its fullest potential. The price is an issue. If Sony – and I know it is difficult as a first party manufacturer and there are a lot of things behind the scenes that most people aren’t aware of – but if they can get the hardware into a more reasonable place for consumers then that would really help.


SPOnG: Can’t agree more. Thanks so much for your time.

Keiji Inafune: Thank you.