Mega Man creator committed to games

Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune has emerged from a short silence following his shock exit from Capcom with a blog and a promise to still make games.

Inafune's new blog, which shows the famously grumpy game developer legend smiling, reveals a man buoyed by his new-found freedom.

Perhaps hammering home the point, Inafune introduces himself as "Keiji Inafune, without a title" (translation by Andriasang).

He has no announcement to make on his new project, but does provide a brief status update. He wants to make games for consoles and portable systems, but is interested in social and online games. He believes that when thinking about games from now on, these areas can't be overlooked.

He's also interested in movies, books and manga. Since he's at last been able to free himself from the shackles of salaryman life, as he puts it, it would be meaningless if he didn't try things that he couldn't do or were difficult to do as a salaryman.

"I'd like to challenge things that I couldn't do during my salaryman era and greatly exceed my former self," he said.

As Inafune was leaving Capcom last month he complained that Japanese developers were being turned into lazy salarymen by out of date business traditions.

"The really big wall that the Japanese game industry is hitting is the changing of its creators into salarymen," he said.

"In short, it's like a communist state. Working as hard as you can is your own loss. Not working hard becomes more advantageous. But doesn't that get in the way of making games? You can't make good games by just taking it easy."

The Dead Rising producer hit the headlines last year for saying the Japanese game industry was dead.