Dead Rising and Lost Planet almost never happened due to company policy at Capcom.
Keiji Infune, who created the aforementioned franchises along with Megaman over his 24 years at Capcom, revealed this and more during a seminar at Ritsumeikan University. In the speech, he said two of the company’s recent successes almost never came about due to a company policy at the time which requested for only 20 percent of Capcom games in-development to be original. The remaining 80 percent were to be sequels, so pitches for new franchises weren’t always warmly accepted.
Despite initial rejection, Inafune continued to work on Dead Rising and Lost Planet. He said prototypes have their own budget within Capcom, so he exploited the system by continuing to work on the Lost Planet “prototype” until it was four times its initial budget. His goal was to get halfway through development so management would be forced to give him permission to finish the over-budget, nearly complete title. His plan worked.
Both games sold millions worldwide and received sequels developed by Western developers, but Inafune said there was once a time when he was prepared to be “fired for warcrimes.”
In 2010, Inafune left his role as head of development at Capcom and started two new companies: Intercept, a game company, and Comcept, a company focused on music, events and other forms of entertainment.
Source: Andriasang
