November 11^th, 2004 (12:08am) - Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami is not pleased with the recent announcement of the PlayStation 2 port of Resident Evil 4. In fact, Mikami-san no longer plans to continue working on the Resident Evil franchise after the release of Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube. He will not have anything to do with the PS2 version of the game, instead the game’s development will be headed by someone else within the company.

However, the rumblings within Capcom do not end there. According to staff within the company, many believe that Capcom’s development studios no longer have the freedom they once had concerning game development and production, and that the decision to port Resident Evil 4 to the PS2 had not been due to popular demand by fans, but instead was influenced by the company’s desire to raise stock prices. Because of this, a handful of staff have voiced that they will be leaving Capcom once production on Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube has been completed.

Resident Evil 4 for the Nintendo GameCube will ship on January 11th, 2005 to retailers in North America and will mark the last time we see or hear of the Umbrella Corporation in a Resident Evil game, as well as the last time Shinji Mikami will direct a RE title.