Kawata agrees with Inafune: "We Japanese developers need to re-evaluate"

Resident Evil producer Masachika Kawata has responded to his former boss Keiji Inafune's comments yesterday that the Japanese games industry was in a "tragic state".

"As Inafune said yesterday, perhaps we Japanese developers need to re-evaluate," Kawata told the audience for his presentation about Resident Evil: Revelations on 3DS at the Game Developers Conference . "I agree with portions of what he said."

"The reason is that he used to be my boss, and if I disagree with him… I'm just kidding."

He said that the Japanese industry was financially healthy due to the success of social games in the country. But it still had an insufficient grasp of the current global gaming market, he said.

"I think we should be researching more, researching what the world wants and what sells around the world. I think we can study more and hopefully make more products that will be accepted and enjoyed around the world," he said.

Explaining that the side-by-side of The Mercenaries 3D and Revelations had gone smoothly and efficiently, Kawata also indicated that there would be more offshoot titles like these in the Resident Evil series alongside this year's Resident Evil 6, and he hoped they would surprise people.

"I hear that they're going to be releasing a Resident Evil 6," he joked, explaining that he couldn't say anything about it. "But in addition to that I hope that we can continue to do these offshoot titles and expand the IP more.

"I really hope that, moving forward, we'll be able to make new Resident Evils for new markets… that people really won't know what's coming."