Dead Rising 2 executive producer Keiji Inafune has now officially canceled his E3 appearance. With the top guy not attending, Dead Rising 2 will also not be making an appearance at the event.

Osaka-based publisher Capcom has released its financial report card for 2007's third fiscal quarter. While a lot of people expected a surge in correlation with the holiday rush, what we saw was a mixed bag at best. Devil May Cry 4 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC) and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles enjoyed good sales, but other titles weren't so lucky. Full details after the jump.

Speaking to Japanese gaming news entity, Famitsu, Shinji Mikami, made popular due to his creative influence over hits like Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and Devil May Cry, admitted that he has started actual development on possible multiple game projects. However, it was said that we shouldn't expect anything from him until after 2008.

IGN reports that Mikami is continuing work with Grasshopper Interactive's Suda 51, the one responsible for the upcoming No More Heroes on the Wii, and Mikami expects to be able to show something to gamers this coming summer.

Mikami notes that unlike old-school developers who have moved on to the production side of games, he plans to mainly be a game director - although he has already had experience being a producer.

Mikami is currently an external board member of SEEDS, an Osaka development company formed by a group of former developers from Capcom, and in general his future titles will carry the SEEDS branding. His games will be published by an actual publisher - not necessarily Capcom. The game creator has formed a private development studio last year, prior to the fading of Clover Studios, called Straight Story.

Jun Takeuchi, producer of Capcom's upcoming Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, says that the development team for the game sees Halo as a major influence during the three year creation of their soon to be released (January 12) game. In an interview over at XboxWay International, he says these words:

Halo was incredibly influential to us. As Japanese developers, what appealed to us was Halo's great gameplay. It isn't just a first person shooter, it also has strong action elements. Halo's influence really pushed us.

So much is the western influence on this Japanese game that they purposely avoided "cheapening" the creative process of the game design by just putting into it as many established Anime/Jap sci-fi norms. Here's Takeuchi's words:

...we felt it would be a real problem if we cheapened the Lost Planet experience by making it essentially an anime. So we began to think in reverse. We thought about how anime, such as Dragonball Z or Ghost in the Shell, had influenced Hollywood. When they make live action films, how are these elements represented? We realized that they try to make these things as real as possible, and that is when the art style of Lost Planet really gelled.

It's still Japanese in spirit but they applied a "western-looking-glass" touch to the design making the game design a bit more unique.

Read the rest of the article after the Jump!