Yoshiki Okamoto leaves Capcom to form new company

Yoshiki Okamoto has left Capcom and has announced plans to form his own company. Yoshiki Okamoto began working for Capcom in 1983 and was involved in the development of games as old as SonSon. Okamoto produced and directed a number of Capcom's hit titles such as Street fighter II and the Resident Evil series. He is also the president of Flagship, the company best known as the scenario developer for the Resident Evil series. While Okamoto is known as a major producer, what makes him one of the outstanding characters in the video game industry is his flamboyant personality.

On June 20, Okamoto left his position as a Capcom executive after 19 years and 9 months to create his own game development company at the age of 42. Okamoto spoke of his current situation in a recent interview in Dengeki Games magazine. In the interview, Okamoto made clear that it was not due to any major issues that he left Capcom. The decision came from an accumulation of issues, such as differences of opinion with Capcom in terms of the direction of the company and the constraints of working as an executive. While there were a number of game companies that asked him to join them, Okamoto had already decided that he wanted to experience making his own company from scratch.

Okamoto will be using a part of his life savings to build his game development company. He will be recruiting experienced developers who wish to work together as partners, and he hopes to distribute shares of stock among them so that all of the staff will be owners of the company. The company will not join a major stock market for the sake of independence from any outside power. There will be no sales or publicity division within the company. Since his company will not have a major title or a stable release in the beginning, it will focus on accepting outside jobs for a while. The company may also go into the side business of consulting for other game developers and publishers.

Many of the details on Okamoto's new company are still tentative. Aside from recruiting employees, Okamoto is looking for companies that are interested in becoming clients. Okamoto is also looking for a good name for the company and is recruiting for someone who would like to become the president. Okamoto does not wish to work as the president of his own company, but rather as its COO (chief operating officer).

The official site for his company has opened today, under the tentative title of "Okatuku", which means making a game company with Okamoto. The site currently has a greeting message from Okamoto, a brief autobiography, a diary page, a company overview, and an application form. The lowest counter on the left indicates the number of employees currently in the company, including Okamoto himself.