Issue #82: Capcom's Cavalcade – March/April 2026

By late 2002, it was clear that Nintendo’s GameCube wasn’t quite catching on. It lagged behind the Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s first Xbox, claiming third place in that era’s three- way race. But it had only been on the market for a year! The hardware generation was still young, and the Big N needed some kind of big boost to bolster their sales numbers.

So Capcom came in to save the day! Though they’d given little love to Nintendo throughout the N64 era, the old, strong support we’d seen them bring to earlier machines was promised again with the reveal of the Capcom Five: five new, exclusive games that Capcom would publish only on the Cube. It was an amazing announcement! It sounded too good to be true! (Spoiler warning: It was.)

Of the Capcom Five, only four were ever finished, and only one actually remained a lifetime GameCube exclusive. But even if the execution of the promise was ultimately diminished, the games that did ship were indeed a huge help to Nintendo’s bottom line.

What were the Five? Cult classic third-person shooter P.N.03. Energetic action platformer Viewtiful Joe. The Grasshopper Manufacture-developed Killer7. Dead Phoenix, a 3D shmup (which was the one that got cancelled). And, finally, the heavy hitter of the bunch: Resident Evil 4.

RE4 debuting as a GameCube exclusive may still be the single most impactful moment of support that Capcom has ever offered to Nintendo! It didn’t take long for the company to break their promise of exclusivity, as RE4 ended up being I think the most-ported-to-other-platforms of all Capcom games ever. But still, those early months of 2005 when Nintendo was the only place to play it? Incredible. A huge get.

The era of the Capcom Five was just one time in the two companies’ long history when their support of Nintendo’s platforms was at a high, and there have been plenty of lows over the years as well. But here in early 2026 we find ourselves on another mountaintop: Capcom is about to unleash a whole series of new releases on Switch 2, in rapid succession. Five of them, in fact!

The Disney Afternoon Collection*, on February 26. Resident Evil Requiem, on February 27. Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection on March 13. Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection on March 27 and, finally, Pragmata on April 24. I’m ready to declare them the all-new Capcom Five!