Capcom: founder's son took the top job in 2007 and rebuilt the studio around teams

Kenzo Tsujimoto founded Capcom in 1979 and named it Capcom in 1983 as an arcade board maker. His son Haruhiro joined the company straight out of university in 1987, worked in sales, became a director in 1997 with responsibility for the home game business, and in July 2007 took the president and COO title from his father, who stayed on as chairman.

The company Haruhiro inherited depended on auteurs: series like Resident Evil and Monster Hunter were tied to individual star producers, so if that person did not make the next game, there was no next game. Haruhiro has described the fix as blunt: Capcom discussed the problem with the central figures behind each franchise and agreed to abandon individual-driven development, rebuild every title from the ground up, and accept that sales might temporarily decline. The father's own rule — a game that is not fun will not sell — stayed the company's stated test.

The results compounded. By mid-2026 Capcom had updated every profit record for nine consecutive periods, a streak the company says no other major publisher matches. In the April–June 2026 quarter, revenue rose 54.7% to ¥70.41B and operating profit 66.9% to ¥41.05B, an operating margin near 58%. Catalog titles outsold new releases roughly nine to one, the RE ENGINE toolchain carried games across platforms, and the new IP Pragmata sold 2.5 million copies in its first two and a half months — evidence the team system creates new franchises, not just maintains old ones.

Nine straight periods of record profits; Q1 FY2027 operating profit ¥41.05B, up 66.9%; operating margin near 58%, roughly double the industry average.

Rebuilding each franchise around a team ended the single-creator bottleneck: knowledge passes generationally between developers instead of leaving with one person.

Accepting possible short-term sales declines during the reset let Capcom rework series from the ground up rather than patching them around departing auteurs.

The founder stayed chairman while the son ran the company, keeping family legitimacy at home while the operating model was being torn up.

An in-house engine and disciplined catalog pricing turned old games into a recurring revenue base: about nine catalog titles sold for every new release.

Preserving a creative firm means changing how the work is organized: moving knowledge from individual auteurs to durable teams lets franchises outlive any one creator.

Monster Hunter Wilds, released in February 2025 on RE ENGINE, passed 10 million copies in its first month. Pragmata, Capcom's first major new IP in years, broke 1 million copies in 48 hours and 2.5 million by the end of June 2026 — deliberately priced at $59.99, below the $70 that became the AAA standard. Capcom held its full-year FY2027 guidance of ¥210B in sales and ¥83B in operating profit. Kenzo Tsujimoto remains chairman; his son runs the company as president, chief operating officer and chief executive of the team system he built.