Capcom wants Dead Rising to replace Resident Evil, says Keiji Inafune

8 September 2010

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Posted by:Josh

The Dead Rising series may eventually replace the Resident Evil series.

That is what Capcom is hoping for if Global Head of Production and Dead Rising creator Keiji Inafune is anyone to go by that is.

To quote:

“The goal for Dead Rising 2 is to replace the Resident Evil franchise and become the number one IP within Capcom,” Keiji Inafune told Eurogamer.

“The goal for Dead Rising 2 is to replace the Resident Evil franchise and become the number one IP within Capcom” – Creator Keiji Inafune, head of Capcom Global Production

He goes on to say, regarding the upcoming Dead Rising 2 (which releases on September 28th), that a lofty goal is what is needed to make sure a franchise is as successful as can be. And for him, nothing is more lofty than toppling the mighty Resident Evil.

“Unless you have a big goal to strive for, you can’t create a good game. Therefore, if the Dead Rising franchise takes over the Resident Evil franchise, a new game I come up with will obviously strive to go over Dead Rising. That’s the goal I set out for any title I decide to create.”

Of course, this is really just a pipe-dream all things considered. The Resident Evil series is a true beast of a franchise due to it’s long roots stretching back to the original Resident Evil released on the PS1 in 1996. That’s a long time and fan’s love for the series runs deep. Dead Rising, on the other hand, debuted on the Xbox 360 in 2006.

In addition, the Resident Evil games have continued to be major hits, with Resident Evil 5 selling over 5 million copies on Xbox 360 and PS3 (even seeing a re-release with Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition earlier this year and the upcoming PS3-exclusive Resident Evil 5 Move Edition) and thus there are very high fan expectations for the upcoming Resident Evil 6 and even the 3DS entry Resident Evil Revelations. The whole franchise meanwhile has sold somewhere in the league of 30 million units across multiple platforms. Compare that to Dead Rising, of which the first game only sold 1.6 million (Dead Rising 2 will hopefully do significantly better).

Then of course, there’s the fact of OTHER media. Resident Evil has been huge in the film business with a successful run of films: Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse, Resident Evil 3: Extinction and the upcoming Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D which hits theaters in two days (and looks freakin’ badass).

So Dead Rising still has a long ways to go before it obtains anywhere near the status needed to unseat Resident Evil as a survival horror king of franchises. Although it doesn’t top Street Fighter, which is Capcom’s most successful series.

As a huge fan of the games, be sure to check out my: Resident Evil Remake GameCube review, Resident Evil 2 review, and Resident Evil 4 review. And our Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles review.

To date there have only been 4 entries in the Dead Rising series. The original and it’s sequel, and the Wii version of the original, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, as well as the downloadable prequel: Dead Rising 2: Case Zero.

Now here’s an in-depth preview on Dead Rising 2.

Via Joystiq