Mikami Alive and Well

via ign

Shinji Mikami was one of the main creative forces behind some of Capcom's biggest hits of the past decade, including Resident Evil, Dino Crisis and Devil May Cry. While he's chosen to keep quiet following Resident Evil 4, Famitsu managed to track him down and squeeze out some hints on upcoming projects.

After a few comments about his absence from the media spotlight (he even joked about how he probably ought to have done some PR for God Hand), Mikami was bold enough to offer an apology for Resident Evil 4 going multi-platform! He feels especially bad because he believes some went so far as to buy a GameCube just to play the game, only to find that it would be available for the PlayStation 2 as well.

Moving on to future plans, Mikami disclosed that he formed a private development studio called Straight Story in 2006 prior to Clover Studio's fall. The studio's name is taken from the 1999 David Lynch movie of the same name.

Mikami is also a contract employee (actually an "external board member") of SEEDS, an Osaka development company recently formed by a bunch of former Capcom stars, including Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya. Mikami revealed to Famitsu that in general, his future titles will carry the SEEDS branding. They will be published by an actual publishing company, although he did not give any indication that this would necessarily be Capcom.

After much joking around, the Famitsu editors eventually got Mikami to admit that he has started actual development on possibly multiple game projects. However, don't expect anything from him for quite some time, possibly not until after 2008!

Mikami is also continuing work on a previously announced project with Grasshopper Interactive's Suda 51, known for the bizarre Killer 7 and the upcoming No More Heroes on the Wii. He expects to be able to show something this summer.

Just to clear things up, Mikami isn't one of those old-school developers who's moved on to the production side of things, separating himself from actual game creation. In his closing comments to Famitsu, Mikami said that he's done the producer thing, but now he plans on being mainly a director. Given the guy's rap sheet, we can't wait to see what he thinks up next.