Dragon’s Crown was Initially Planned for Wii, Capcom Passed on Muramasa Pitch

Vanillaware President George Kamitani talked about Dragon’s Crown, how it was in development for Wii, and more in this week’s issue of Famitsu  magazine. [Thanks, Ryokutya2089.]

On Muramasa: The Demon Blade

• “It didn’t pass with Sega or Atlus. Thinking rationally, all I could say was ‘Hello, this is Kamitani from Princess Crown, the pre-launch of Fantasy Earth: Zero, and the to-be-released GrimGrimoire and Odin Sphere’ at the time.”
• “The company was close to shutting down around the time Odin Sphere released, but Marvelous told us they liked the project and made it a reality.”

On Dragon’s Crown

• Dragon’s Crown was initially a project for the Wii.
• “It was well-received when I presented it to a senior at Capcom, but supposedly one of the higher-ups asked ‘But can it sell like Monster Hunter?’ and the project didn’t go through.”
• “That’s where we met Ignition.* They immediately gave us the OK.”
• “Ignition had no complaints. The target was Xbox since we wanted to develop for a worldwide audience, or something like that.”
• “Dragon’s Crown is a title that wasn’t meant to sell that much. The publisher wanted the next game before sales started. Our goal is to continue making games and the sales come as a result of that, but if we were to flip that around then…”
• “I’m glad it sold well, but I personally thought it was bad as a strategy.”
• “As work becomes more readily available but that set higher hurdles. If we were to fail on a 4-5 year course… then what would we have done?”

*Ignition would go on to transfer all rights and duties of publishing Dragon’s Crown to Atlus in 2012.

Check our previous report for more from George Kamitani on Princess Crown and other development stories. You can also check here for a new project teaser from earlier this year.

Dragon’s Crown on Wii never happened, but it went on to release on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. It also got an enhanced port on PlayStation 4 as Dragon’s Crown Pro in 2018. Muramasa: The Demon Blade released on Wii and later the PlayStation Vita.