Oh I bitched back then too though it was mostly in lunchroom discussions back then.
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SFIV and MvC3 could have both been handled better and I still consider the switch from a cheap DLC to making me pay more for a glorified expansion pack to be a real dick move and to consider they did it twice with two different series made them lose a bit of trust in the Fighting game community. Its not helped that I feel both games are poor shadows of where the genre has gone in the past decades and it took releasing the special edition Ultimate editions to finally start having the core fighting fanbase to really accept them.
As for TvC, to be fair, that whole debacle is really Capcom's fault. Placing the game exclusively on the Wii and then trying to release it in the western market whose core market reviled the system was kind of a stupid move on their part, especially since Tatsunoko is not exactly a household name over here in the West. The fact the game didn't do well was not really much of a surprise.
MM did need to die in its current state but it would never have had to come to this if Capcom had handled the franchise better instead of riding it into the ground. For awhile there, they were announcing sequels before new entries had received world wide release, and some of the side franchises received a huge stack of sequels in a very short period of time, despite being a new IP within the series. If Capcom had really pushed for innovation instead of nostalgia or a quick buck as far back as the original series, the franchise may have survived. I mean games like MMLegends didn't do well because by the time they were released people were sick of the Mega Man franchise, and even MMX4-6 all did mediocre along with MM8. The fact it grew into a cult classic later may have given MML3 a chance, though I would point out it was probably a bad move on Capcom's part to ask fans for creative advice on the game. One stroll through and franchises fanfiction will teach a company why you should never take fans creative advice. Both Mega Man and Street Fighter will always be infamous for overpriced expansions and flooding the market with unneeded sequels and they got that reputation in the 90s but it hasn't stopped them from doing the same with Resident Evil, MvC, and Monster Hunter today.
I do agree that Capcom is in a bit of a "damn if you do, damn if you don't" but I also feel that it's largely Capcom's fault for getting themselves into this predicament in the first place. SE itself is now in this position and I would also point out that like Capcom it has a lot to do with how they treat their franchises and creative staff that got them into this state of affairs.
As for Inafune, he was hardly the only guy within the Japanese game industry who was talking about the lack of innovation and poor corporate environment of the industry. I'm starting to believe that the only people who don't think the Japanese Gaming Industry is in a funk and in danger are the fanboys who seem to be in denial. I mean when people within the industry start saying its a problem I feel its time to just accept the facts. Wada complained about the industry, Kojima has made choice remarks about Konami, the troubled developments of FFXIII that SE admitted to (like not having a solid game concept until a year before release when the team was forced to make a demo, or the error in making the game with a new engine that SE wasn't even out of Beta with) just shows that management within the company does not have its head on straight. We've also seen far more of the famous designers from the 90s/early 00s leaving their companies in the past decade.
So I honestly stand with Inafune when he says there is a serious problem with the Japanese business culture that is choking the industry over there. With the exception of a handful of major franchises like FF, MGS, and RE the Japanese game industry has been overshadowed by Mass Effect, God of War, Call of Duty, Elder Scrolls, and GTA to name a few. If you look at a top ten list of what gamers are looking forward to there are rarely many Japanese series games. Ubisoft, Naughty Dog, Rockstar, Bungie, Bethseda, and Bioware are now creating the industry standards this generation. Capcom is only making headlines now because they started releasing sequels to franchises that haven't been on the market for nearly a decade. SE has been getting more press time with their Eidos publishing titles than their own in-house titles. Both Konmai and Capcom have also handed over major franchises over to Western developers, so I really do feel the idea that Japan's gaming industry is no longer the industry standard is a pretty fair statement, and all Inafune was doing was trying to make his opinions vocal for the hope that some changes could start happening. The man was just frustrated and I felt his probalems with the industry were things that even fans have been grumbling about for years.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Capcom, in my experience, the company has a nasty track record of being incredibly awesome or incredibly stupid during different periods of time. I just happen to feel that Capcom is in said stupid phase at this point in time, but if any company has a good track record of rising from the ashes of its mistakes its usually Capcom. I'm hoping SE could do it as well but lately they have left me very skeptical about this.
