Mega Man creator and Capcom head of R&D, Keiji Inafune, has announced that he will be leaving the company by the end of this month. Now was this writing on the wall?
In a blog post written by Mr. Inafune, titled “Sayonara,” he expresses his long tenure at Capcom, reaching the highest position of the corporate ladder. Infaune states he there is “nowhere higher for me to go,” having started at the company as a character designer.
Inafune is renowned for creating Mega Man but also helped establish franchises such as Dead Rising, Lost Planet, and Onimusha. His most recent work for the company included Lost Planet 2 and Dead Rising 2, the former suffered poor sales in the first half of this year. He was also instrumentally involved in the two upcoming Mega Man titles: Mega Man Universe and Mega Man Legends 3.
His remarks on the Japanese game industry drew ire as he stated that the East was failing to keep up with the times and that games made in Japan were “awful.”