Capcom's Ono and Kobayashi on Street Fighter and Dragon's Dogma

In a pair of recent interviews, Capcom's Yohsinori Ono and Hiroyuki Kobayashi spoke about their current projects, Street Fighter and new IP Dragon's Dogma.

On the Capcom site Ono, deputy head of consumer games development, revealed some interesting statistics about the iconic fighting series, Street Fighter.

"Generally, North America accounts for about 60%, Europe 30%, and Japan and Asia 10%," he explained.

"Up until recently sales in Asia have been pretty close to zero, but they have been gradually going up over the last few years."

He also explained that Europe provides a particular challenge for marketers, but said that Capcom was keen to increase the European coverage of the series.

"The thing about Europe is that it's not one country but a collection of 30, so that means we need to have the marketing ability to fine-tune our promotional campaigns for each individual country."

Capcom already has subsidiaries in Britain, France, and Germany and plans to expand on this.

Ono estimated that around three million people play fighting games globally, and said that the series would continual to see a steady stream of releases.

"I feel that the Street Fighter series needs to be a stable business capable of breaking the million mark in sales at any given time, selling up to two or three million copies each time a new title for the series is released," he added.

"The mission of our team is to consistently offer something new in the series so that fans will keep coming back for the sequels."

Producer Kobayashi was also ready to discuss the challenges of launching a new IP in the form of RPG Dragon's Dogma, which is due for release in early 2012.

"The cost aspect was quite a headache because this game is not only massive, but completely new," he said.

"Getting people within the company to understand what we were aiming form was incredibly difficult. There were countless times I felt like giving up when I had trouble persuading others, but ultimately I got the consent of everyone at Capcom, including our American and European subsidiaries."

Calling it the "single most difficult title" he had ever lead, Koyabashi was keen to praise his employer as a place where those sort of risks are supported.

"I feel that Capcom is the only place where these kinds of projects can happen. That's because we have a group of executives and developers who trust each other."

In an April issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu, it was reported that development was 50 per cent complete.

"Dragon's Dogma" has definitely caught the notice of people inside and outside the company," he added.

"Get ready to be blown away!"

Capcom released its financial results this morning, revealing that the largest growth had been in the companies mobile division.