Street Fighter brand manager Yoshinori Ono has announced he is leaving Capcom, after working with them for 30 years.
The announcement came via Ono’s official Twitter. Thanking fans for their support of the Capcom Cup and Capcom Pro Tour (and addressing that some were unhappy with Capcom Pro Tour’s 2020 format), Ono revealed he would be leaving Capcom this summer.
“I’ve been with the Street Fighter brand for a long time, experiencing good times, bad times, and even non-existent times. My heart is filled with appreciation to those players who’ve been giving warm and kind support on the brand especially little over the past decade or so as all activities on the Street Fighter brand regained sunshine and grew its liveliness.
And now, after serving almost 30 years at Capcom, I am leaving the company in this summer. This means that I will resign my position as the brand manager for Capcom’s various titles including Street Fighter.
Capcom staff in the new generation will continue taking care of the Street Fighter brand and leading the World Warriors. And, I do believe that they will continue making Street Fighter extraordinary. I will look forward to seeing the new Street Fighter brand and seeing how it’s going ot be expanded, as just one of regular games next time around.”
Ono explained he had even struggled to get in contact with those he had worked with over his long career to discuss is resignation. Asking for understanding, Ono also stated “I’d like to extend warm greetings and my appreciation to those individuals and companies I’ve had a chance to work with.”
Ono began his career at Capcom as a music composer and sound manager in 1997 (Mega Man: Battle & Chase). He began the sound manager for Street Fighter Alpha 3 in 1998, and took his first non-sound focused position in 2002 as assistant producer on Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny.
He would become a producer a year later on Chaos Legion, and became the producer and executive producer on several Street Fighter and other Capcom fighting games after.
Ono was also the executive producer on Deep Down, though that game was slated to release on the PlayStation 4 with no recent information.
Photo: Kevin Damske / License: CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikipedia