Game Republic founder/director Yoshiki Okamoto comes out of hiding to reveal he has retired from the game industry and is now "making mobile phone games".
Video game creator Yoshiki Okamoto, the man behind Time Pilot, 1942, Final Fight, and Street Fighter 2, says he's retired from the business of making console video games.
Following the closure of his studio Game Republic, where he developed moderate successes like Folklore and two Genji titles for Sony, the famed game designer and producer tells Polygon he's now working on mobile games. His first mobile title, a "secret" game, he says, will be released in the near future, he says.
"I have retired," Okamoto said during an interview in Tokyo this week. "That's what I'm told to say [by my boss]."
Okamoto won't actually say who he's working for. But he believes that mobile games, not traditional, increasingly risky console games, are the path to his future success.
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Okamoto got out of the business of making video games for consoles when his studio, Game Republic, closed its offices last year. The company still exists, he says, but Okamoto is its only employee.
"Game Republic has not gone away, but we ran out of money," he explained. "So I had to let go of everybody."
At its peak, Game Republic employed about 300 people. The company was hit hard financially after the closure of publisher Brash Entertainment. The studio was developing a video game adaptation of Clash of the Titans for Brash and when the publisher folded in 2008, Game Republic lost "a large amount of money."
"But of course we had made the decision to go with Brash Entertainment," Okamoto says, shouldering some of the blame. Okamoto also pointed to the weakened global economy at the time, adding "It wasn't totally their fault."
"There were a lot of things I wanted to accomplish [at Game Republic]," Okamoto says, including a sequel to PlayStation 3 game Folklore, "But I need a sponsor to create those games." Even mobile titles, Okamoto says, require an investment of more than $600,000 to have a chance at success.
http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/9/18/3349570/game-republic-yoshiki-okamoto-retired-console-games-mobile