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Capcom layoffs, Senior VP Christian Svensson among them [Update: Capcom responds]
Capcom is currently going through a reorganization, with Christian Svensson, senior VP of planning and business development, known to be departing the company. "After nearly eight years, it is my final day at Capcom," wrote Svensson in a social media post. "This departure is not a bad thing for me and it's happening mostly because I'd suggested it during the early planning for today's reorg. While I wish the company the best of luck, Capcom is going in a different direction and the need for people at my level, relative to other areas, is lacking. Those who know me well, know that I've been ready to go for quite some time." We've reached out to Capcom for a statement and will update when we have more. Update: A Capcom representative has provided us with a statement regarding today's events: "Capcom today laid off several employees from the US office as part of an overall organizational restructure of the company. The transition to the new generation of hardware and changing industry landscape have required us to adapt our business to best meet our new goals. We sincerely thank each individual for their contributions and wish them well."
Capcom Fighting Jam, Capcom vs SNK 2 on US PSN 'eventually'
Both Capcom Fighting Evolution (Capcom Fighting Jam in Japan) and Capcom vs SNK 2 are available on PlayStation Network in Japan, leaving fighting fans in the US wanting of what was once a bad business idea. Capcom senior VP Christian Svensson offers a crumb of hope in the Capcom forums, saying both will be here "eventually."Svensson says we should hear more about both "next year," and that the "timing will be quite different though from Japan." We can't be sure what he means by the latter statement, but since both saw their reemergence as PS2 Classics on Japan's PSN months apart, it's possible there won't be such a gap between releases when they finally arrive in these parts.
Capcom on the hunt for Street Fighter X Tekken hackers
The fact that Street Fighter X Tekken's character DLC exists on the disc is a contentious issue in its own right, but now a preemptive compatibility countermeasure is being exploited by nefarious ne'er-do-wells with hacked Xbox 360s.As seen in the video above, unreleased DLC characters have begun showing up on Xbox Live. While this doesn't cause any technical problems for law-abiding citizens or break the game in any way, Capcom is unpleased: "Quite ballsy for folks to be taking hacked Xbox 360s on Live where they are detectable," said Capcom senior vice-president Christian Svensson. "In any event, we already have openned channels of communication with MS on these issues Friday night."Initially, Svensson asked members of the Capcom Unity forums to take screenshots and record videos of offenders, but that thread has since been closed. "We'll catch them ourselves," Svensson added, presumably just before donning a cloak and cowl and jumping out the nearest open window.
Capcom's Svensson embarrassed by 'Revelaitons' covers, optimistic about RE6
Capcom's Senior VP of planning and business development, Christian Svensson, responded frankly to a few of the company's recent issues at GDC last week, and perhaps most interesting was his complete surrender on the misspelled Resident Evil: Revelations box art."It's embarrassing. I can't really sugarcoat it," he admitted to Game Informer, saying that multiple departments were responsible for checking it, and that procedures had since been updated to make sure it doesn't happen again. "There are only about 90,000 units that have the misprint. If you've got it and it's shrink-wrapped, that's a new special edition, that's our new strategy," Svensson joked.Svensson declined to comment on the abrupt cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3, and offered a "never say never" on a US release of Ace Attorney Investigations 2. Asura's Wrath sales, according to Svensson, "went about almost exactly how we thought it would."And Svensson also bends the knee a little bit concerning the announcement of Resident Evil 6 and its proximity to other Resident Evil titles, but is unapologetic about making that title the biggest in the series yet. "The plan is the biggest Resident Evil game ever. We're not messing around," said Svensson. The plan is working, too, because "pre-orders for Resident Evil 6 are off to a fantastic start. The best start a Resident Evil game has ever had."
Capcom's Svensson wants fans to know 'Mega Man is a key brand,' still
Mega Man is still near and dear to Capcom and official announcements will come "in due course," senior vice president of strategic planning and business development Christian Svensson told GameInformer. Some "top men" (as opposed to "bottom men," "middlemen," and "top but not as top as men women") at Capcom are considering Mega Man's future as we speak, and it remains a key brand for the company, Svensson said. Svensson recognizes that some fans are "disenfranchised" with Capcom over the Mega Man cancellations, and he asks for patience, as there is no quick cure for those wounds. Capcom is working on its relationship with western markets, establishing Fright Clubs for Resident Evil and Dead Rising games in North America, and the original Fight Clubs rolling out in Europe over the next few months. Capcom is also relaunching its Capcom-Unity site for fans to engage directly with employees and developers. Capcom is working with western studios such as Capcom Vancouver on its current projects, which includes a new IP, Svensson said.
Capcom claims RE: The Mercenaries 3D save controversy won't happen again
Speaking with Capcom Unity last Friday, Capcom USA VP of Strategic Planning & Business Development Christian Svensson said that, given the upheaval and generally bad reaction caused by Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D's peculiar save system, it's unlikely that we would "see something like this happening again." He also maintains that there was "never quite the malicious intent the conspiracy theorists out there would have you believe," and that RE:TM3D's inability to reset saves was a conscious design decision aimed at maintaining the "arcade fighter" feel of the title. Regardless of why they did it, it's good to hear the team claiming that it won't happen again. We're just dying to reset our Mega Man Legends 3 saves.
Capcom removing DRM character restrictions in PC Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition
After some straight-up outrage from community, Capcom has decided to keep the hostility in Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition contained within the in-game fights, instead of directing it at customers. A title update issued shortly after the launch (or possibly at launch) of the PC version of Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition will disable the DRM-imposed restrictions on the roster. In short, you can use all 39 characters while offline, instead of being limited to 15. "As one would logically expect," Capcom's Christian Svensson notes, "to get any of the benefits of the online services (online multiplayer, replay sharing/watching, achievements, etc.) you must be online and logged in." Svensson said that following the response to the DRM announcement, Capcom spoke to fans in the Ask Capcom forum. "The argument that legitimate users would have a worse experience than pirates was the loudest and most convincing," he said. "We certainly don't want that to be the case and that was never our intention." With Capcom having reversed its decision in favor of its own customers, we feel it's important that we all hold up our end of the deal and don't pirate the game.
SSFIV Arcade Edition PC to discourage piracy (and frustrate buyers) with 'limited' offline mode
Okay, so there is a catch. We figured Capcom had a "solution" in place when it confirmed that Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition was coming to PC. The problem? Piracy -- the threat of which kept Capcom from releasing vanilla SSFIV on PC just a year ago. In a blog post on Capcom-Unity, company VP Christian Svensson has addressed some "Stuff You Want to Know About SSFIV:AE for PC." Scroll down and you'll get to the catch. "SFIV unfortunately was plagued by pirates and hackers that messed up leaderboards," Svensson writes of the original iteration on PC (which still sold well by Capcom's earlier account). "To hopefully remedy that, SSFIV:AE will be making use of what is called SSA technology." While not as random as certain TSA measures -- SSFIV:AE players can still wear shoes and needn't limit their beverages to 3.4-ounce bottles -- the game's Software Security Assurance protocol is no less strict. Players are required to be signed into Games for Windows Live in order to access most of the game's features and content. In offline mode, SSFIV:AE is reduced to a sort of demo, with players limited to local play only (obviously), but also restricted to 15 of the 39 fighters and unable to save settings or challenges progress. DLC is inaccessible when playing offline, as well. Should the GWFL connection be lost mid-game, the player is given a chance to sign back in at a "logical break point" -- but should that fail ... you're in demo mode. And if you don't live in a GFWL-supported region? Svensson calls that a "buyer-beware situation." Prospective purchasers should also be aware that Steam and Impulse will implement their respective "security solutions" (in addition to SSA), and that Steam users won't use GFWL Marketplace to purchase DLC. "We'll provide more details on that wrinkle at a later date," Svensson notes.
Capcom talks stronger focus on PC platform
Capcom isn't really known for its PC titles -- sure, ports here and there populate the platform, but it's primarily a console company. In a missive over on Capcom-Unity, corporate officer and senior veep, Christian Svensson, details how he and a select few others within Capcom are working to change that. "As we continue to expand our businesses in Russia, China, Korea and Brazil, the PC becomes increasingly important as it is the primary platform in those territories," he says. Svensson points to the "historically" small PC market in Japan as a hurdle, which means the Japanese developers aren't very familiar and comfortable with the platform -- but online experiences are becoming quite prevalent; a viable means of revenue and justification for allotting resources for PC development. The success of Monster Hunter Frontier Online is certainly helping Capcom understand the importance of the platform. "PC gaming's profile is growing at Capcom," Svensson assures. Several games are slated to come to the PC this year, including Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Dead Rising 2: Off the Record and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City. Svensson says the Japanese COO and other execs "increasingly request a PC version" when discussing what to green light if no PC version is planned during the first stages of a product. "So in short, while we're still not yet where I'd like for us to be, the future is getting better for Capcom fans who are PC gamers all over the world."
PSN outage costing Capcom 'hundreds of thousands, if not millions,' exec says
A Capcom-Unity forum user received a surprisingly frank response from senior VP Christian "Sven" Svensson when he asked the executive, "Do you have anything to say about the ordeal going down with hackers messing with [Sony] and stealing information from their servers?" Does he ever! Svensson, who said he was "frustrated and upset" by last month's breach and subsequent outage, offered a two-fold response, first addressing the question from his consumer perspective. "I also play games online on PS3, which I can't do ... and likely my personal information is also compromised," he lamented. "Secondly I like to buy things in the PlayStation [Store] and that I can't do right now" -- not to mention play Capcom's pair of DRM-protected PSN games offline. While the gamer in Svensson seems to have a surefire back-up plan (his post signature notes he's currently playing Portal 2 on PC), his corporate officer side has less wiggle room to weather the outage. "On a related note, as an executive responsible for running a business, the resulting outage obviously costing us hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in revenue that were planned for within our budget," he added. "These are funds we rely on to bring new games to market for our fans." Svensson made no mention of any specific delays, cancellations or business restructuring that might result from the revenue shortfall, nor did he suggest how Capcom might look to recoup the lost revenue. His response also avoided any critique of Sony's handling of the situation, and instead stayed on topic: "CAPCOM- How do you feel about the SONY Hackers?" asks the thread's title. "In short, the hackers appear to be trying to 'punish' Sony for some perceived injustice, and they've been effective in that I suppose," Svensson concluded. "But they're also punishing millions of other consumers and businesses which makes it impossible to be sympathetic to their 'cause.'" [Pictured: Capcom PSN Storefront; source: Capcom-Unity]
Capcom spending plenty to make Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike Online great
Though it's been a while since we've heard anything about Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online, Capcom has apparently been hard at work on the downloadable fighter. During a streamed "Ask Capcom" event, Capcom's Christian Svensson revealed that we'll be "deluged with information in about four weeks," putting the timeline around E3. Svensson went on to classify 3rd Strike Online as "the highest budget digital title we've done" at Capcom USA, even exceeding the budget of Super Street Fighter II HD Remix, which had completely redrawn graphics by Udon Entertainment. That suggests that Capcom is putting a lot of effort into this game -- and also that Udon worked super, super cheap. Capcom fighting game guru Seth Killian said that this update was "one of those things you sorta have hopes for and you hope it's gonna turn out a certain way ... and then it did." Sounds like this will be the definitive version of the game about fighting super-powered underwear guys.
Capcom: No plans to localize Ace Attorney Investigations 2 'at this time'
If you're eager to find out about the ongoing adventures of Miles Edgeworth, Dick Gumshoe, and Kay Faraday (like we are), we have some possibly distressing news to report. Capcom is currently denying any plans to localize Ace Attorney Investigations 2. During a recent "Ask Capcom" video, VP of strategic planning and business development Christian Svensson answered a question about the game pretty flatly: "The answer is 'no.' Sorry about that." He echoed this sentiment in a less definite manner on other occasions, telling Capcom forum members "Regarding AAI2 sorry guys, there's no plans for Western release at this time." Finally, he clarified Capcom's position in a statement to Siliconera: "Regarding the question, plans change all the time so I would probably rather use the 'There are no plans for a Western release at this time for AAI2.'" We can't help but be reminded of Atlus's recent declaration of "no plans" to localize Catherine, followed two days later by the announcement of a North American release. As for Capcom, there were no plans for a Western release of the Wii port of Resident Evil Zero, either -- Svensson even said that Capcom USA was "asked twice if we've wanted to bring it Westward and twice we've declined." The third time, it relented; the game came out in North America in 2009. So, yes, plans change all the time.
You will not be taken for a ride by a Marvel vs. Capcom 3 demo
We're pretty sure if we were given only a handful of characters and stages from Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds in a free trial, we could stretch out our enjoyment of it for an awfully long time. We won't get the opportunity, however: In a recent post on the Capcom Unity forums, VP of Strategic Planning Christian Svensson confirmed to anticipatory fans that, "As with Street Fighter IV, there will be no demo of MvC3." Svensson also responded to a few fans theories about yet-to-be-revealed fighters, and also defended Capcom's decision to sell downloadable characters, stating "DLC is part of the business model these days given the massive costs of production and can be the difference between a profitable product and an unprofitable product." Oh, wait -- that's gotta be another hint, right? An unprofitable product? That's like, pretty much confirmation of the inclusion of Dark Void protagonist William Grey.
Capcom: Dante redesign controversy raises DMC's visibility
The reaction to Dante's new look for the Devil May Cry reboot had Capcom asking, "Why so serious?" The publisher's VP of Strategic Planning and Biz Dev. Christian Svensson told IGN that the company knew Dante's new look would bring a "knee-jerk reaction from fans." He said, "To be fair, I think some of the strategy here was to create that discussion and dialogue, and I think it drastically raises the visibility of the title versus if we had just done another Dante." He explained the original concepts that came back for the new Dante were too close to the flamboyant source material. Capcom's Keiji Inafune and Hideaki Itsuno weren't having any of that and told the team to, according to Svensson, be "much more creative." Svensson explains that, "This is meant to be an origin story, so this is Dante before you knew who Dante was." Wait, you mean he was more than that guy with the white hair, wearing a red leather trench coat? Surprising, 'cause that's all we can seem to remember about him.
Capcom explains $40 SSFIV price, 'cautiously optimistic' about Tatsunoko sales
Capcom's VP of strategic planning and business development, Christian Svensson, officially confirmed the retailer-listed $40 price for the upcoming car vandalism sim, Super Street Fighter IV, in a recent interview with Gamasutra. Expanding on statements made when the game was first announced, Svensson said, "Going $10 above Platinum/Greatest Hits pricing was sort of a nice compromise ... It's $40 -- we had two choices, and the economics didn't work out on one ... no matter what, we were fracturing the userbase, and we had to start from scratch." He went on to explain that the content was simply too much for a platinum version of the game, and that a new release would render cross-game play between SFIV and SSFIV impossible due to differing "title IDs." Svensson also teased that those who played SFIV on the system for which they purchase SSFIV will get access to "a nifty little special set of things that those people will have the option of enjoying that others won't." Moving on to the subject of January's launch of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Svensson said, "We're a couple weeks in right now, and we've been doing re-orders. We're not at all dissatisfied with the sales at this point." As for long-term sales of the game, he added, "We are cautiously optimistic that it's going to have long legs ... the Versus series is well served by Tatsunoko as an outing. It really happens bring Versus back as a viable brand for Capcom." With any luck that means we'll see more ... interesting mashups from Capcom's Versus series in the coming years. Maybe Nintendo or Square? Whaddya say, folks?
Capcom updating old brand for Natal, not treating it as a 'gimmick'
Capcom informed G4 at CES that it's certainly working on "stuff" for Microsoft's Project Natal, including a "brand we haven't seen in a while." The publisher's VP of strategic planning and business development, Christian Svensson, explained that it's creating something "from the ground up for Natal." As he put it, "We're not looking at Natal as 'okay, here's a little Natal gimmick that we've worked into some existing game.'" Svensson added that Keiji Inafune, Mega Man's papa and head of R&D at Capcom, is "really excited" about working with the peripheral (as demonstrated during Tokyo Game Show's Xbox 360 Creator Panel). Not that Capcom is planning to rush the process, mind you. "We're gonna cook something and it's gonna to take a while to cook."
Capcom working on 'PC-lead' projects
Speaking to VG247 in a podcast, Capcom's Christian Svensson offered the faintest of hints about new products in the works, indicating only that some of them were being made with PC as the lead platform. "That doesn't mean that that content isn't also going to show up on console," Svensson clarified, "because it will."This is different from other PC-designed products using the MT Framework engine in that these games are being designed specifically with PC audiences in mind. Svensson said that "the pedigree of the team and the primary focus of the design is around the PC, and the largest forecast is on PC for at least one of these projects."New IP from Capcom seems like something to look forward to, right? If only we knew anything at all about it.
Future Capcom titles hitting Steam day and date with retail; more RE5 DLC considered
Capcom's business and strategy VP Christian Svensson mentioned in a recent interview that the company plans to release future titles on Steam day and date with retail. ButtonBasher, following up on information provided in a recent Rock Paper Shotgun interview, discussed the topic of PC digital distribution and Svensson noted that Dark Void and Bionic Commando will be available on Steam at the same time as retail. The executive also noted that Capcom's western offices take digital distribution "very seriously."Svensson added that the company is "considering" more DLC for Resident Evil 5. He notes that "there's nothing to announce by any stretch," but that a request for DLC suggestions on the company forums created a thread that's "hundreds of posts long." That's not really shocking, considering fans are passionate enough to give their blood for RE swag.[Thanks, Jono]
Capcom working on more PS1 classics for PSN
When SCEA's John Koller said Sony was looking into transferring more PS1 classics to PSN, he wasn't kidding around. Third-party companies like Capcom appear to be stepping up their game; strategic planning & business development VP Christian Svensson says the company has more PS1 titles down the line. "The first PS1 titles for PSN were submitted last week ... when I have some dates for them, we'll let you know ..." Svensson confirmed on Capcom Unity.So far, Capcom only has one PS1 game in its classics roster: Street Fighter Alpha -- excluding the HD remix of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. The ESRB has hinted at Street Fighter Alpha 2 & 3 coming to PSN for some time now, but these might not be the titles Svensson is currently referring to. Perhaps we'll see more Resident Evil games on PSN like in Japan.[Via Siliconera]
Capcom VP explains RE5 multiplayer development, calls complaints 'BS'
Although Capcom had previously responded to the flack it's received for the $5 charge on the Resident Evil 5 "Versus" DLC, a VP for the publisher has had enough with all the complaining and is calling "BS." Christian Svensson, VP of strategic planning and business development, explains on the company forums that people are getting plenty of bang for their $60 and says that if people don't see the value in the secondary offering that, "the choice is simple, don't purchase it."Svensson goes on to explain that paid DLC at Capcom has its own budget, with its own profit and loss analysis. He emphasizes that without this method, the Versus content wouldn't exist in the first place, because it "did not fit within the production budget of the base product." He continues that to hit the sweet spot of DLC releasing within 3 to 6 weeks of initial launch that development on these products starts before the actual product hits shelves.Although the whole situation definitely has some debatable points, Svensson certainly hit the nail on the head when he said if consumers don't agree with what Capcom did: Don't buy the product.[Via Kotaku]
