Yoshiki Okamoto

Early career at Konami

His early games Time Pilot (1982) and Gyruss (1983) innovated in the shoot 'em up genre during the golden age of arcade games. The Killer List of Videogames included both Gyruss and Time Pilot in its list of top 100 arcade games of all time. Although these games turned out to be successful titles for Konami, Okamoto's employer was not happy as apparently Okamoto had been told to create a driving game instead. Internal disagreements, financial and credible, caused his termination from Konami.

Career at Capcom

Joining Capcom in 1983, Okamoto directed several arcade games such as 1942 (1984), SonSon (1984), and Side Arms (1986). His 1985 shoot 'em up Gun.Smoke later inspired a spiritual successor, Red Dead Revolver, the first installment of the Red Dead series.

The last game he directed was the 1989 CP System game Willow (1989). He would oversee the development of Capcom's subsequent arcade games as a producer and was responsible for recruiting character designer Akira Yasuda for Capcom. Okamoto and Yasuda developed some of Capcom's biggest hits, most notably the beat 'em up game Final Fight (1989) and fighting game Street Fighter II (1991). Street Fighter II is estimated to have grossed $10.61 billion as of 2017, making it the third highest-grossing video game of all time, after Space Invaders and Pac-Man.

In 1996, Okamoto became Capcom's head of development and oversaw all their games, starting with Resident Evil. In 1997, he established Flagship, a subsidiary company of Capcom that specialized in creating stories for their games.

Okamoto approached Angel Studios with the idea for an original intellectual property entitled S.W.A.T. It later adopted a Western theme at Okamoto's recommendation, redefining the acronym as "Spaghetti Western Action Team". It was intended to be a spiritual successor to Gun.Smoke. Angel Studios began work on the game with Capcom's oversight and funding in 2000, and Capcom announced the game as Red Dead Revolver in March 2002. Okamoto then left Capcom, which canceled the game in August 2003. Rockstar Games acquired the rights to Red Dead Revolver in December 2003 and resumed development, releasing it for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in May 2004.

In 2003, he left Capcom to form another video game company.