In 2010, Capcom COO Haruhiro Tsujumoto told analysts that his company would pursue a new strategy -- in which the internal development teams in its Osaka studio would forge ahead with new IP and Western studios would create titles under existing brands.This strategy is currently in full swing withcity, a shooter developed by Canada's Slant Six Games, the team best known for its work on thefranchise for Sony.Meanwhile, Capcom director Hideaki Itsuno and producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who last teamed up to helm, are currently working on original fantasy action gamewhile England's Ninja Theory () tackles the latest iteration ofIn this interview, Itsuno and Kobayashi discuss the thinking behind this move, what they hope to achieve with the game and how they intend to do it, and how moving into contemporary production processes have affected Capcom's internal development studios.Hiroyuki Kobayashi: The main thing we want to accomplish with this game is to create something that felt like you were actually having a real-life adventure.Hideaki Itsuno: Yeah. The goal for us was to try to create a fantasy world that looks believable and realistic. If fantasy were real, how would you react? What would you do when you're in this fantasy world? We wanted people to imagine how it could become realistic for them, and then interact with that in a realistic way.HK: For us, we have the two strategies working simultaneously. There is, as you said, giving our famous franchises to other companies to see what they can do. We're always looking for new challenges for us at Capcom, and one of those is creating new IPs -- new franchises that will resonate with the fans. For us, we wanted to try something new, and that's why we developed this title internally.We look at the other franchises as our children: we grow them, we raise them, and then we send them out to other companies and see what they can do with them. That gives birth to things like the new, and such.HK: Yeah. (laughs) Like you said, I think it is kind of rare for companies to put out new IPs in mid-cycle of a console's life. But, for us, I think this is the perfect timing for that because we have all of this experience making Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games. Now, we want to use that and show everyone what we can do. Because now you have a really good install base for those two systems, I think the time is right to bring out a new IP because now you have more people that can potentially get in on the ground floor of a new franchise.HK: I think that we were just blessed with timing and resources coming together. We knew that we wanted to make a new IP, and we had this dev team that was free to do that. Then the director, Itsuno-san, was free at the same time and looking for a new challenge, as well.HI: The fact that the team itself became open and I, the director, was open -- these things just came together in a perfect match because we as a company want to put out a new IP, but, as you said, the resources available for that and everything just came together at the right time for that.HI: For me, personally, I've always been a big fan of The Lord of the Rings series. I think everyone in the world would be in agreement that that's kind of the starting point, the prototypical fantasy storyline.For me, it has always been a goal of mine to get as close to that as possible when creating a game. You can have yours and yours, and I think that they become their own genres, their own things; but for me to try and create something as close to a Lord of the Rings-type setting, that's not something I usually have been involved with. I really wanted to get involved with something that's like Lord of the Rings because I respect that series so much.HI: Yeah, for this game as well, we went all around Europe to actually get a lot of info, especially for the backgrounds and environments in the game. We did a lot of research in Europe that's helped to try and recreate those in the game.HK: Actually, it was a combination of both. We looked at architecture and buildings and things of that nature and also just natural environments as well. We took many pictures, of course, and we tried to recreate those as closely as possible in the game.HI: For us, if you just use what you have available in Japan, it's going to feel Japanese in the game. We wanted to make sure we had that authentic feel for the game, and that's why we went around in Europe and got all that as materials and tried to recreate them in the game.HI: Yeah. The structure of the teams has changed a lot from the beginning, on PlayStation and PlayStation 2. We're working with five times the amount of team members as we used to. Compared to what we had on, the number of members involved is just phenomenal. I think we have more line to production -- more units -- because there's more things that go into the games now than what we were putting in before, so we have to do that.HI: I think more than managing the team itself is the fact that we're dealing with a new IP, so everyone involved in the game's production doesn't really have a clear idea of what the game is going to be when we come out at the end.Right now, I think the team is working well together. All of the wheels are greased properly, and they've got the motivation and the teamwork aspects down. It's just the fact that, at the end of the day, what kind of game are you going to make is something that you can't see until we get there. But as far as managing the team itself, I think that's gone pretty well.