Resi creator nearly joined Nintendo

Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami has revealed how he very nearly joined Nintendo rather than Capcom at the outset of his career.

In an interview with Famitsu, translated by 1Up, Mikami revealed how he got started in the industry.

"A friend of mine had found a flyer advertising some kind of job fair-slash-buffet party Capcom was holding at the Hilton and he gave it to me because he knew I liked games.

"I went mainly because I wanted to eat at the Hilton for free, but once I started talking to Capcom people, really getting in depth about the work they do, I thought it sounded pretty neat.

"So I applied to both Capcom and Nintendo, and it turned out the second round of interviews for both companies were held on the same day, and I chose Capcom. It's likely for the better because I probably never had a chance with Nintendo - it took a company like Capcom to pick me up."

The mind boggles at what might have been. How would the games industry look today with no Resident Evil? And what might Mikami have achieved at the house of Mario?

The Vanquish director went on to offer some troubling revelations about his childhood, detailing his father's violent, abusive behaviour.

"He would hit me pretty much daily. My dad had to take jobs starting in middle school and wound up dropping out of high school in order to support his family, so I have to respect him for going through that, but he was really just such a violent person.

"I remember one night when I went to bed without doing my homework. He kicked me out of bed in the middle of the night and told me to go outside. So I did, in my pajamas without any shoes on, and he told me to stand in front of the car.

"Then he started chasing me around in the car," Mikami continued, "and he wound up having me run about five or six kilometers, all the way to the seashore by our house. Once we hit the coast, he drove off without saying a word, so I had to walk home by myself in my pajamas.

"If you think about it, if the police had seen this barefoot boy in pajamas being chased by a guy in a car, they would've arrested him on the spot, wouldn't they?"

Mikami is currently working on action horror epic Shadows of the Damned with No More Heroes creator Suda51 for EA. Not only that, but his Tango Gameworks studio has just been purchased by ZeniMax, for whom he's directing a new, as yet unannounced title.