In order to reach a broader market and make more money, Capcom said it needs the Resident Evil series to evolve from its survival-horror roots.

Speaking in an interview with Gamasutra, Resident Evil: Revelations producer Masachika Kawata said a survival-horror focused title wouldn't be a smart business decision nowadays.

"Especially for the North American market, I think the series needs to head in that [action-oriented] direction," Kawata told the website. "[Resident Evil's primary games] need to be an extension of the changes made in Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5.

"RE4 started in that direction, and RE5 kept going in that direction," he said. "And I think that especially for the North American market, we need to keep going in that direction, and take that a step further. And that's exactly one of the reasons that Revelations is the way it is," he said.

Kawata is not involved with the development of Resident Evil 6, but said he doesn't think the game needs to move all the way towards action gameplay.

"Looking at the marketing data [for survival horror games] ... the market is small, compared to the number of units Call of Duty and all those action games sell," he said. "A 'survival horror' Resident Evil doesn't seem like it'd be able to sell those kind of numbers."

He added, "I can't really speak for Resident Evil 6, but I don't think that it necessarily has to go all the way in that [action-heavy] direction, the Call of Duty direction. It doesn't have to be a straight up shooter. But my impression is that Resident Evil 4 and 5 aren't shooters, per se."

Kawata said there might still be room for survival-horror through more Resident Evil spin-off titles, however. "So we have our numbered series, and we can say we have a more adventure-oriented version, like a Revelations-style game. And we also have Operation: Raccoon City, which is a third-person shooter," he said.

"So I think that by extending the market in this sense, we can still have the numbered titles keep their identity about what Resident Evil is supposed to be, but still expand and hit other markets as well."

[Source: Gamasutra]