Capcom has begun constructing its second new research and development building in Osaka, Japan. The two new research and development buildings, Building S and Building N, are planned for completion in January 2015 and February 2016 respectively. The construction of these buildings and the interior and accessories will cost 8 billion yen (approximately 80 million US dollars). The two new additions will house some of the latest facilities. This is a breath of fresh air with all the recent companies closing their doors and issuing layoffs. Capcom released the following statement. Capcom has been focusing resources on strategic and growing areas under a policy of selection and concentration in order to operate with speed and flexibility.
Constructing these new R&D buildings will make game development operations more efficient by centralizing these operations and upgrading speed and control. Overall, this may be bad idea. Last year, Capcom reportedly only had around $152 million in their bank accounts. Many people speculated Capcom would go bankrupt. However, they pulled through, and made the highly anticipated Monster Hunter 4. Only release to the Japanese audience, it was smash hit. The company hoped to release the Ultimate version worldwide, faithful that it would achieve even more amounts of success. Sadly, it had failed in other areas. Just recently the company cut its profit projections by 50%, citing investment, an underperforming mobile sector and disappointing sales of Monster Hunter: Frontier G as factors.
While still turning a profit, the company is keen to make changes to improve its long term prospects. In 2013, it announced its intention to rely far less on outsourcing development and to focus more projects in-house, and has now confirmed a major investment to facilitate that change. Even with that, a lot of people have been bashing Capcom for "not giving the gamers what they want". One great example is their situation with Mega Man.
Although the Blue Bomber is appearing in the extremely demanded Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo consoles, he has been thought to be abandoned by the company. Several cancelled games k**ed the dreams of many fans. Some developers even went so far to blame the core fan base. the Also, the creator of Mega Man left Capcom to create Mighty No. 9. After he posted his project on Kickstarter, it raised over 3.8 million US dollars. The side-scroller is headed to the PS4 and Xbox One.
Even with critics complaining about the amount of DLC and re-releases of the same game, Capcom is still going strong. The company is also expanding its internal development staff by around 100 per year, opting for graduates fresh out of school. With an end goal of 2,500 internal developers by March 2022, they want to capitalize on the mobile market and more.