Resident Evil 5 Creators: Japan Seeing Benefit Of Shared Tech

Author: by Christian Nutt, Staff

Talking as part of an in-depth Gamasutra interview, Resident Evil 5's Jun Takeuchi and Yasuhiro Anpo have been discussing why shared engine tech is vaulting Capcom above other Japanese developers who are "maybe struggling" with next-gen development. Capcom's multi-platform MT Framework engine, also used in Devil May Cry 4, as well as Lost Planet and Dead Rising, was cited as a key to producing competitive visuals and gameplay easily. Resident Evil 5 director Yasuhiro Anpo explained of MT Framework that "...we had that ready to go, and we had that created, that's probably what gave us the advantage over other Japanese developers who are maybe struggling with the next-gen consoles, to a certain extent -- and maybe only now are getting to grips with it." As for the 'philosophical change' that happened at Capcom to allow this to happen, moving away from highly custom game and platform-specific toolsets that have tended to characterize Japanese game development, producer Jun Takeuchi commented: "That was something that actually came from the development teams, rather than from upper management. It was something that the developers thought of." Anpo added of the shift: "Before the MT Framework, we were all working on games separately, and creating them separately, and it was a very inefficient process, to have lots of different teams separately developing tools to make games." Later in the interview, RE5 producer Takeuchi explained of the thinking behind the traditional Japanese view of tech and sharing: "There are a lot of other Japanese developers who are opposed to that way of thinking... There's not an advantage, to it, certainly. I think where it comes from is that the developers in one team always want to think that they're the best, and that their way of making the game is the best way to make their game." Anpo contributed that "...there's a lot of rivalry within teams working within the same company. Before, that used to be an advantage, and it used to be a plus point that you'd get rivalries between different teams who are working in competition with each other. That did help improve the quality of the product, ultimately, but these days I really don't think it's an advantage at all." Takeuchi confirmed: "In fact, it's a disadvantage", rounding off the interview, which can be read in full on Gamasutra, and also includes comments on designing for a worldwide market and Japanese development team structure.