Several people have asked Capcom over the years to re-release their games on various platforms. According to company V.P. Christian Svensson, there can be significant costs and other factors, which lead Capcom away from doing so.Doesn't Capcom own the full rights to their old games like Rival Schools and such?
Sven: In this day and age there's rarely any such thing as "full rights".
For example, in modern games there are contracts for middleware that's always got terms and conditions that are specific to a term and platform. There's voicework and soundtrack work done by people outside the company, under contract, that again have duration terms and platform specificity.
If it's a project developed externally (or even components of the game that were outsourced), often there's royalty considerations for a port or emulation under a new platform that wasn't envisioned 10+ years ago.
So any game that has voice. Any game that has externally produced music or audio design, any game that has any external technology or resources that were included or produced under contract, has to have a legal and IP check to see that those rights are still in force. For games that were designed for retail only (as was the case 5 to 15 years ago, there is always high chance of not having the right paperwork in place with those parties.
Now, the question of "can't you just go set up a new contract with those parties?" comes up. In some cases, yes. In some cases no and in either case, there's significant costs in doing so.
Will you be bringing Pocket Fighter/Super Gem Fighter to the PlayStation 3 and XBox 360 marketplace?
Sven: I'd call it a long shot.
Are you guys planning on releasing some of your games through GOG.com (Good Old Games)?
Sven: [...] At the moment, nothing happening. But I am keeping in touch with them. I'm a big fan of their service and I love the CD Projekt guys. Really great peeps.
