Capcom's Niitsuma: Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Only Works For Wii

Author: by Staff, Christian Nutt

Wii-exclusive Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom would take so much reworking to release on multiple platforms that it would be a "completely new title," Capcom producer Ryota Niitsuma tells Gamasutra. The Capcom-published 'versus' fighter pits the retro cool of the anime studio, best known in the West for Battle of the Planets/G-Force, against Capcom's slate of memorable characters -- up to and including Frank West from Dead Rising. The game, due out in January 2010 in the West, is coming exclusively to Nintendo's Wii console right now, and Niitsuma explains: "I guess you could say that when you put it on a system, you want to utilize the capabilities of each specific system, so if you put it out on the Xbox 360 or the PS3, you want to make it for those systems and utilize them to their full potential." "I don't know, maybe that's just something we do at Capcom. I don't know how other developers are thinking about it," he continues. "But if you take the Wii for example, we don't just want to put a game out on the Wii. We want to put out a game on the Wii that actually utilizes all the capabilities of the Wii." But wouldn't it work on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 with some art cleanup? "Sure, that would be good for sales, but I like to think about the people who bought a Wii just to play a game like this," he says. "I want to take care of them, too." "I think, as I said previously, we've tried to exploit the Wii to its full potential for this game. Of course, that's just my opinion, but, I mean, Capcom might come down on me and say, 'Hey, we want to make more money, so put on this,' but that's on them." The game was designed so specifically to maximize Wii's potential to the fullest that it would take heavy reworking to make sense on the Xbox 360 or PS3. "It wouldn't be a matter of just changing the texture maps or anything like that," says Niitsuma. "It involves so much time to actually rework the title that it would be a completely new title. And if we're going to spend that much time doing it, then we might as well just make a new title anyway." The full Gamasutra interview with Niitsuma is now available, including how the project got started, balancing the title, and more.