PARIS, FRANCE – NOVEMBER 1: Players play the video game “Street Fighter 6” developed and published by Capcom during Paris Games Week 2022 at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on November 1, 2022 in Paris, France. After a two-year absence due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Paris Games Week is making a comeback in Paris. The event celebrating video games and esports will take place November 2-6, 2022. (Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)
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The Japanese game developer Capcom is known for video games like Resident Evil, Marvel vs. Capcom and Street Fighter – but he doesn’t just want to conquer the hearts of gamers, but also those of moviegoers.
At the Tokyo Game Show in Chiba, Japan, Chief Operating Officer Haruhiro Tsujimoto told CNBC that Capcom’s strength in games is that the company can sell both new and old titles.
Tsujimoto pointed out that the fact that Capcom releases new game titles almost every year for existing franchises such as Street Fighter and Resident Evil “indicates that we have a strong and high-quality catalog.”
The company plans to release a sequel to the action role-playing game Dragon’s Dogma after over 10 years. It was unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show, but an official release date has not yet been set.
Tsujimoto told CNBC’s Will Kouloris that this approach is “one of our key strategies” and that it “leads to further sales of our brands that we have launched in the past.”
Capcom is no stranger to the film industry, having released a live-action film called Street Fighter in 1994 and seven Resident Evil films since 1997.
“Capcom was one of the first companies to cooperate the gaming business with the cinema business,” emphasized Tsujimoto. “We’ve seen the synergy of movies selling well and games selling well when a game is made into a movie.”
We’ve seen the synergy of movies selling well and games selling well when a game is made into a movie.
Haruhiro Tsujimoto
Capcom’s chief operating officer
Therefore, the company is deepening its foray into the film industry by launching Capcom Pictures in Hollywood in 2022, and this film production company will aim to produce more films there.
“Our company will continue to develop in the future. Our strategy is to develop both game production and film production and take digital entertainment to new levels by not only having these companies compete with each other, but also promoting each other.”
AI in games?
While generative artificial intelligence, with the potential to create text, images and even videos, is being touted as the next big step in the tech industry, it may not arrive in the game development industry anytime soon.
Tsujimoto said that integrating AI into game development is a “difficult situation” where “many issues need to be addressed before we can actually integrate generative AI into our operations.”
On Wednesday, Hisashi Koinuma, president and chief operating officer of Koei Tecmo Games, shared the same view.
AI is all the rage right now, but the gaming industry may not be ready to adopt it just yet
He told CNBC that challenges still exist when using generative AI in game development.
“We are still in the process of researching and examining how and to what extent generative AI, including rights-related issues, will benefit game production and how much it will contribute to making better games.”
However, Camcom’s Tsujimoto emphasized that generative AI can be used to improve efficiency in the workforce and development – but the company is still in the process of exploring its use in game development
The COO said that this could be achieved not by reducing the number of developers, but by improving the efficiency of Capcom’s development through more efficient allocation of personnel while leveraging generative AI.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Dragon’s Dogma 2 was unveiled at the Tokyo Game Show 2023, but the game’s official release date has not yet been confirmed. An earlier version of the story misstated this fact due to translation problems.
Source : www.cnbc.com