GameSpot’s own Kurt Indovina has created a video that explores the Capcom 5. This was sparked by a conversation between him and a Producer about Resident Evil 4 being a GameCube exclusive. You might be questioning what on Earth I’m talking about. Well back in 2002, Capcom agreed to make 5 games for the Nintendo GameCube, exclusives. These went on to be known as the Capcom 5, but it’s a story that led to Nintendo falling out with Capcom for a good long time.
The Capcom 5 were PN03, Viewtiful Joe, Dead Phoenix, Killer 7, and Resident Evil 4. The crux of this story comes from the difference between the press releases around the announcement of the Capcom 5. The US version slates all the games as GameCube exclusives. However, the Japanese version says that they’ll be exclusives for the GameCube, unless another platform holder wants those games on their systems. Though the Japanese version definitely listed Resident Evil 4 as an exclusive to the GameCube, regardless of outside interests.
As time went on, these games were released. However, with theGameCube being the worst-selling game of its generation, Capcom started to worry. They wanted to get their games in front of as many people as possible, so they suddenly announced, two months before its release, that Resident Evil 4 would also be coming to PlayStation 2. This was a massive blow to Nintendo. It was clearly a move from Capcom to make as much money as possible, though given the lack of sales from the rest of the games they’d put out, it’s not unreasonable to see why they did this.
Since then, the relationship between these companies seems to have been repaired. We now have games like Monster Hunter Rise on the way for the Switch, despite Resident Evil 4 being on more consoles than I can list.
Clearly Capcom and Nintendo didn’t sign a definitive contract on the exclusivity of Resident Evil 4, or any of these games. This was a deal made in good faith, and Capcom turned around and broke any trust that had been built between them and Nintendo. While the lack of Capcom releases on Nintendo’s consoles since didn’t seem to hurt them too much, Nintendo fans definitely enjoyed it when they did get a Capcom game, such as Okami, or Monster Hunter 3 Tri.