soundwave05 said:
The "word on the street" is that around early 2001 Miyamoto and Iwata went to Capcom.
This is quite rare since Nintendo simply doesn't grovel at the feet of third parties. Even if they've lost a bit of their stature, it's still something if the British Royal Family comes to visit your house for example.
Apparently Okamoto, concerned at the time over the PS2's difficult to code for architecture and sold on Miyamoto/Iwata's wining and dining agreed to the heavy GCN support.
Later on, when it became evident that GameCube wasn't even going to come close to sales estimates, there was interal pressure on Okamoto by some "suits" who wanted him out. So he resigned.
I don't know if that's 100% accurate, but it seems like this just a deal that went really sour.
What I know...
Mr. Mikami is pro-Nintendo anti-Sony. Even when CAPCOM pretty much didn't support N64 at all...he insisted that RE2 be ported to it anyways. Even though it took more work than it was arguably worth and in the end CAPCOM probably took a hit to release the game it came out 'cos Mr. Mikami wanted his game on N64 'cos he wanted N64 only owners to be able to enjoy his game. Later on down the road when DC came along he worked with Sega to bring Code Veronica onto the platform "exclussivly", but CAPCOM higher-ups made him make RE3 Nemisis for PlayStation to show Sony they were still in good faith. I dunno if Mr. Mikami liked this, and he obviously didn't like the fact that Sony had an almost monopolistic influence in the industry worse than probably Nintendo did back in the NES era. I think he wanted to "balance the scales" and "even things out". HE was the one to call Mr. Miyamoto before GAMECUBE released and asked him if the series would be appropriete for GAMECUBE. Thus the "exclussivity" deal began...too bad CAPCOM managment didn't like it. There was no contract and no money knowingly exchanged...this was announced just right before the GAMECUBE launched in Japan. Nintendo was also working on another "coupe" by working out a deal with Square to make games for GAMECUBE...but that was thwarted when Sony bought a big stake in Square to prevent it. It inevitably happened later on, after Mr. Yamauchi pulled some strings and Brownie Brown & GDS were formed as a bridge for Square games on Nintendo systems, but it originally was meant to be announced around the same time as the RE exclussivity was announced to sorta stick it to Sony. Mr. Mikami was very vocal towards his anti-Sony (and anti-Square) mentality, but CAPCOM itself continued to support PS2 much more even thru Production Studio 4's "CAPCOM 5" announcement. Mr. Mikami is a GAMECUBE evangelist and it's even rumored that he convinced Mr. Kojima to let MGS onto GAMECUBE.
Mr. Okamoto left CAPCOM due to upper-magerial disputes, but I don't think over Nintendo...otherwise he'd either be with Nintendo now or the company he headed up afterwords would be supporting Nintendo. He became close to Nintendo 'cos he and Flagship wanted to work on a Zelda series, they got the chance and this started alot of idea's within Nintendo to do more collaborations...including Mr. Mikami's RE Zero (at the time, planned exclussivly for N64). Then this openned up relations between CAPCOM & Nintendo furhter before this generation started and that led to RE exclussivity. While I'm sure Mr. Okamoto had a slight hand in the whole RE exclussivity and the "CAPCOM 5"...I don't think that was the reason he left the company in the end. He was invited to Nintendo HQ soon after he left CAPCOM though, and they gave him a limited edition SP as a gift! =D
CAPCOM, the company, probably never wanted to piss off the market leader, nor did they want the creator of the RE series to badmouth them, let alone bring the series "exclussivly" to a non-Sony platform. While the creator's of the RE games on GAMECUBE were pumped for it, CAPCOM, the company...was not. Sony even had thier hand in the RE movie, making it hard for CAPCOM not to say "oh yeah...don't worry, the games really aren't exclussive, we're just fuckin' with 'em Sony...don't be mad, Mr. Mikami was just joking when he said PS2 sucks...really...don't hurt us!" They did alot to "soften the blow" to "fans" of the series and the original "home" (Playstation) of the series...and I would even go so far as to say that they never wanted the GAMECUBE versions to sell well so as to justify porting the games later. I mean, even now...why wouldn't they wait until AFTER the GAMECUBE version is released before say it's also coming to PS2? Sabatoge! Probably Sony's idea to do it before this holiday season in order to undermind Nintendo altogether (a one-two-punch with the PSP pricepoint announcement) and I will be SHOCKED if Mr. Mikami is remotely involved with the port or even still with CAPCOM after the GAMECUBE version is released. If he truly was anti-Sony & pro-Nintendo and CAPCOM's higher-ups are forcing his game onto other platforms after he promissed Nintendo fans that it was exclussive time and time again, then this should be the straw to break the camel's back. He should already be packing for Nintendo, which would give CAPCOM even more reason to announce the PS2 port now, just to spite him and Nintendo.
Hopefully Nintendo is smart enough to pick him up and give him his own studio so they can have thier own in-house mature games ready for Revolution. Maybe Mr. Mikami can convince Mr. Okamoto to come along for the ride? Hey...didn't the long time FF composser leave Square? Man...I know I'm reaching, but it's been rumored for a while now that Nintendo was beefing up it's Tokyo studio with industry veterans.
